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AMONG THE WOMEN
OF THE SAHARA
;:i?Ria5Sir.?fiflsagpj.
-^
MRS. ARTHUR BELL
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in 2008 with funding from
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AMONG THE WOMEN OF THE SAHARA
Among the Women of
the Sahara
From the Fre?ich of
MME. JEAN POMMEROL
MRS. ARTHUR BELL (N. D'Anvers)
author of
"The Elementary History of Art" etc
With Ninety Illustrations, after Drawings and Photographs by the Author
LONDON
HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET
1900
All rights reserved
PRINTED BY KELLY'S DIRECTORIES LIMITED,
. LONDON AND KINGSTON.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.
This brightly-written narrative of several months' wander-
ing in the Sahara between El - Aghuat and In - Saleh,
forms a really unique revelation of a phase, or rather of
several phases, of life hitherto little known to Europeans.
Madame Pommerol, with a courage and perseverance
worthy of Mrs. Bishop herself, penetrated into homes in
daivar and kasr jealously closed as a rule to all outsiders,
sometimes succeeding in making friends with the inmates
and sometimes having to beat a hasty retreat, so fierce
was their hostility. She has given the results of her
experience in a series of very vivid word-pictures, sup-
plemented by sketches and photographs taken under
great difficulties, for the women of the Sahara look upon
the camera as an uncanny sentient being with the power
of the evil eye, and moreover they consider it a positive
crime to allow their portraits to be taken. In spite of
all opposition, however, many evidently good likenesses
of typical faces were obtained by the indomitable
traveller, and will no doubt add greatly to the value of
her book amongst all students of character.
NANCY BELL.
20, QuAi EsPAGNOL, Bruges.
September, igoo.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
1. — Who are they ? i
II. — First Impressions of the Arab Race . . 13
III. — Beauty amongst the Arabs . . . . 25
IV. — A Difficult Chapter ..... 41
V. — More about El-Aghuat ..... 49
VI. — The Women of the Kusur .... 79
VII. — The Wady M'zab and the Seven Holy Cities hi
VIII. — Among the Mozabite Women .... 138
IX. — Negress Slaves 161
X. — The Quest for Water amongst the Nomad
Arabs 171
XI. — About Birth and Marriage amongst the
Arab Tribes 181
XII. — Divorce in the Sahara 215
XIII. — Wargla : the Pearl of the Oases . . 229
XIV. — From Tuggurt to In-Salah .... 245
XV. — Life in the Dawar amongst the Nomad Arab
Tribes 269
XVI. — About the Camels of the Nomad Arab Tribes 309
XVII. — On the Ideas of the Saharian Women . . 325
AMONG THE WOMEN OF THE SAHARA
CHAPTER I.
WHO ARE THEY?
To the question with which I have headed this first
chapter of my account of my sojourn amongst the
women of the Sahara, the fact that I am of their
sex enables me to give a very true reply ; for as a
woman I have been able to learn to know them
well, to understand their unformed characters,
breathing the samie air as they do, camping upon
the same sands, and honoured by their intense
and perhaps too demonstrative friendship.
In every great tribe, in every small sedentary
community, the women have their own special
costume, their own peculiar amulets, their own
manners and customs, setting them apart from
every other group. Their dispositions, too, are
modified by circumstances ; some gaining courage
from their surroundings, whilst others grow more
timid. Their figures, always supple, become thinner
I
2 JVHO ARE THEY?
or plumper as the case may be. Their complexions
are either sallow, tanned, nor pink ; but, in spite of
these superficial differences of form or feature, their
characters are radically the same, bearing the un-
mistakable impress of the terrible climate, the
restricted conditions of their life, and of the stern
Mussulman faith, professed for some nine centuries
at the least, by all the races of the Desert.
Frivolous, childish and cunning, these women
have no scruples, for they themselves believe the
doctrine of Mohammed, that they have scarcely so
much as half a soul apiece. Their natures are, in
fact, as I have just remarked in other words, quite
undeveloped ; and although they are remarkably
plastic, they are incomplete, in the same sense as
is a statue roughly outlined in the block. Greedy,
APPEARANCE OF SAHARIAN V/OMEN. 3
voluptuous, spiteful and untruthful though they be,
they are yet morally superior to the Arab and
Berber women of the Tell, or Algerian Sahara.
They have the proud, free carriage, so unlike that
of their sisters of the North, of women accustomed
to live in the open air. When young, there is
something alike of the cat, the gazelle, and the
antelope about them. They are indeed infinitely
interesting, but much in the same way as are the
animals to which I have compared them.
Their black or greenish eyes, enlarged with kohl*
from the very day of their birth, full of combined
fascination, reticence and mystery, have never
looked upon any other scene than the vast and
gloomy stretch of white sand of their native land,
broken only here and there by a few rocks or the
declivities known as dunes, dotted with tufts of
the grasses called diss and drinn, which are green
for a short time in spring, but dry and grey for
the rest of the year, and grow in considerable
quantities at wide intervals, the sand collecting
behind them. The only tree, and that of very rare
occurrence, is the palm, decorative enough, no
doubt, but somewhat melancholy. No variety any-
where, except the scattered bones of dead camels,
and over all the fierce sun, rising and setting in a
furnace of a sky implacably blue.
'- This is the stibium^ or antimony, with which the eyelashes are
painted. — Trans.
4 WHO ARE THEY?
The eyes of these women have scarcely seen any
shade but that thrown by the scattered tents or
the yet more melancholy mud houses of their tribe ;
and there are actually women of the towns — and
oh, what towns those are ! — who have never entered
a tent, and other women of the desert who have
never been inside a house. As a matter of course
the range of their ideas is restricted, and their
vocabulary is as limited as are their thoughts.
They know, for instance, that their fingers spin
the fleece of the sheep and the coarse hair of
the camels ; they know, too, who dyes the wool,
who weaves it, and who knots it into fringes ; for
it is their own industrious hands which prepare the
colours, wring out the dye, and, in a word, get
IGNORANCE OF THE SAHARIAN WOMEN. 5
the raw material into shape for the market. But
their knowledge stops there ; they do not know who
makes the cotton stuffs and silk handkerchiefs
brought to the desert by caravans. Understand
well what I mean ; they don't know whether it is a
man, an angel, a demon, or what they call a jinn,
who produces these things. Of course, however,
I am only speaking of those v/hom our effete
civilization has not yet touched, or given a smatter-
ing either of its science or its vice ; and these
include the greater number, in fact, the mass, of
the true women of the true Sahara.
The dreary expanse of their native land does not,
however, suppress their gaiety. Their laugh still
rings out high and clear. The narrow limits of the
tent or of the clay hut do not shackle the freedom
of their movements ; the poverty of their language
does not prevent them from instinctively recogniz-
ing the innate poetry of the songs they transmit
from generation to generation. And about them
there is a something — I know not what, so difficult
is it to define — irresistibly attractive to us Euro-
peans, which is better than intelligence, and better
than physical beauty. It is, maybe, that perfect resig-
nation (after more than one crisis of furious revolt) to
their fate, as fixed by the angel-writer, the scribe of
Allah himself, combined with the absolute harmony
of their voices, their smiles, their gestures, their
costumes and their ornaments, with the piquant and
6 WHO ARE THEY?
fascinating environment, which has made them what
they are.
Gladly would I plunge at once into the subject
of the inner life of the women about whom I am
writing, for I know well that one carefully observed
fact is worth any amount of theory. But in this
case to abridge would really involve spinning out ;
for to understand the great diversity of customs it
is necessary, to begin with, to get a clear notion of
the diversity of origins. I remember well what
perplexities, or rather what maddening confusion,
resulted at the beginning of my journey from my
ignorance about differences of race ; a confusion
which I can save others from sharing, by two or
three pages of explanation ; pages the reader is
free to skip, if he or she be impatient or already
well up in the subject.
About Race then. Race is a most important
matter, the one chief factor in all the distinctions
not levelled away by the climate of the Sahara,
but to which those who study the country — still so
little known — whether on the spot or from a distance,
give far too little attention. Indeed, certain there
be who confuse the Arab with the Berber race, and
no one has ever looked upon the latter as aboriginal.
As a matter of fact, however, it is the outcome of
the fusion of several races from Asia, mixed in the
North of Africa with Iberian, Etruscan, Carthaginian
and Pelasgic elements, with a strain of the true
THE OPINION OF SALLUST. 7
aboriginal race, still almost a sealed book to
science, yet of which undeniable traces have
been recognized. In the South, the so-called
Berbers have added to all these diverse elements
certain Ethiopian, Egyptian, Persian and Tyrr-
henian infiltrations. All the tribes of the Tigris
and Euphrates basins, all those living on the Lower
and the Upper Nile, have contributed their con-
tingents of fugitive slaves and of refugees fleeing
for safety in time of war. As a result, certain
modern Saharian women are really incarnations in
the present day, of races who have been swept away
and are looked upon as extinct.
It seems a pity to neglect the opinion of Sallust on
such a subject as the Berber race, for he was well-
informed and cautious — too cautious, it is said, to
be fully relied on. But he was pro-consul of Africa,
and the embezzlements with which he was charged,
and which, by the way, were never proved, do not
in the least detract from the value of his obser-
vations. The Governor of a province, then looked
upon as barbarous, exiled from Rome, consumed
with ennui, he devoted himself to cross-questioning
the "ancients " of the country as a distraction. He
investigated the old traditions, even then beginning
to die out, as he himself explains, and I am quite
at a loss to imagine what motive he could have for
insincerity. Now, according to him, the Moors of
Mauritania (the present Tell el Moghreb) were
8 WHO ARE THEY?
Medes and Syrians, and Carthaginian colonies
occupied the whole of the coast of what is now
known as North Africa. Beyond them on the
south were the Numidians, yet further away the
Getuli, [and after them the Garamantes, whom
Sallust refers to as dwelling in a country a very,
very long-way off.
To sum up : foreign races of ill-defined numbers
wandered into the then unknown wilds of North
Africa, where the enervating climate paralysed their
energies and weakened their constitutions. Here
they mingled with the yet older aboriginal people,
all trace of whom is now nearly lost. Later, that is
to say about the fifth century, whilst the Vandals
were ravaging the coast districts, there were yet
other incursions from the East (Abyssinia, Upper
Egypt and Tyre) of races more modern than
the first comers, but still ancient from our point of
view, who were the remnants of a world in ruins —
of that world we are always trying to build up anew,
but never understand.
All these foreigners had more or less to do with
the production of the various groups of the so-called
Berber race, the inappropriate and indefinite name
of which we retain, simply because it has been
sanctioned by constant usage. Three of these
groups, namely, the people of M'zab, the Ghuara of
the Wad-Gheir, and the Tuaregs, now occupy por-
tions of the Sahara ; and in the hisilr, or fortified
ARAB CHARACTERISTICS. 9
villages, dwell yet other inhabitants who are, as
the saying goes, almost Berbers and almost true
Saharians.
As for the Arabs, the last to arrive, and the
most thoroughly in harmony with the wide stretches
of sand over which they wander, it may be roughly
stated that they occupy all the districts which the
Berbers do not. They intermarry with the latter
pretty often, though they look upon such unions
as derogatory to their dignity, in fact, regular
mesalliances. In spite of these lapses, however, the
Arab race remains perfectly distinct, apart, and cha-
racteristic, increasing, moreover, rapidly. Haughty,
yet miserable, descended from Abraham and from
Ishmael, they pride themselves on having given
birth to the Prophet, and take a delight in the
idleness and apathy distinguishing them from the
activity and eager interest in life of the Berbers.
" Deliberation is from God," says the Koran,
" precipitation is from the Devil."
lo WHO ARE THEY?
The modern nomad tribes known as the Shaanbas,
whose robberies have rendered them celebrated,
with the more important Larbaas, the Aulad-Yaya,
with the Said-Otba, Beni-Thor and many others,
occupying the districts south of Algeria, are
really Arabs dwelling, to quote Sallust once more,
in those Saharian " regions consumed by the
terrible heat of the sun ; where the heaven is
without rain, the earth without springs, where
the inhabitants are healthy and robust, inured
to fatigue, skilled in the chase," etc.
Really, that chapter of Sallust might have been
written yesterday.
From what has just been said, it will be seen that
we have to distinguish between two great races
ARAB AND BERBER WOMEN. ii
of the Sahara, the differences of which are more
accentuated in the feebler than in the stronger sex ;
for, as we all know, feminine finery never loses
its right to variety even in the desert, and is not
as unchangeable as is the burnous of the masculine
wearer.
There are then to be considered Arab women
and Berber women, with the sub-divisions of each
into communities or families.
Berber women are bigger and, when they are
beautiful, more beautiful than their Arab sisters ;
Arab women are more supple, more graceful,
and have a more feline prettiness, when they
are pretty, than the Berbers. All alike, how-
ever, endure with equal fortitude the rigours of
the sultry climate, and all become old before their
time. But there is a wild beauty about their child-
hood like that of the opening bud, and their brief
youth is as full of charm as the flower of a day.
IN THE ARAB MARKET. 13
CHAPTER II.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE ARAB RACE.
Turning over my travelling note-book, I find the
following passage marked with a line in the
margin :
'' El-AgJmat, Nov. 1898.
" The Nomads of the Market. — Men dressed
in white, of every condition of life, are hurrying
busily to and fro, crying out, running hither and
thither, disputing with each other. Some of them
kneeling near their wares, are gesticulating and
laughing. Others are lying about here and there,
in the hot sunshine or the shade, fast asleep. Out-
side the hovels, dignified by the name of cafes, are
merry groups, playing games or chattering, all
apparently in the highest spirits. Is the contem-
plative Arab, seated in front of his tent, absorbed
in the idea of the Maktub* then, after all a myth .'*
■•■■' That is to say, what is written in the Book of Fate or on the
leaves of the Tree of Paradise. — Trans.
14 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE ARAB RACE.
Anyhow, I do not find him here, and all I do
recognize of any preconceived notions brought over
unconsciously with my luggage, is the magnificence
of the gestures of those about me. But these
gestures of protestation, recalling the vehement
dignity of the Biblical patriarchs, are not those of a
chief swearing fidelity or hatred ; all the chiefs I
have seen are very fat, and scarcely move even
their arms. They are merely the gestures of
some Weled-Sidi-Atallah, who offers to sell you a
lean sheep, or of some beggar who hopes to get
zilg- snrdi (a couple of sous) out of you.
" 1 have been chatting with some experienced
travellers from the Southern States, and what they
tell me astonishes me greatly. We also questioned
some of the people in the tents, nomad Hajajeh, or
Maam'ra, of the great Larbaa tribe, and my illusions
were dispelled one after the other. The love of the
Arab of the Desert for his horse, for instance ? — A
mere fiction. He rates his beast according to its
marketable value, or according to the use it is to him;
but he never caresses it, never speaks to it, any more
than he speaks to the rocks of the Shebka. There
are, moreover, I am assured, very few horses in the
Sahara. And when I reach the south-east, or the
south, they will disappear altogether, and the classic
vision of a musket pointed from above a flowing
mane, behind which regally floats a huge burnous,
will become ever rarer and rarer. The musket itself?
DISPELLED ILLUSIONS.
15
The beautiful bronzed weapon of romance is also all
but a fiction. The nomad, it is true, never parts
from his musket, and carries it slung awkwardly
across his shoulders all day long — for all I know to
the contrary, all night, too — but he takes very good
care not to clean it. He mends it sometimes with
bits of old European meat or biscuit tins. If he
should fire it, the weapon would most likely fly
to pieces in his hands. But could not his women
look after it for him, and rub it up sometimes ?
His women ? The plural is quite out of place in
this case, for, with rare exceptions, our nomad only
has one wife — at a time, at least, for he often
changes her. Polygamy is the luxury of the Caid,
1 6 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE ARAB RACE.
just as are the beautiful horse and the good musket.
Even the Caids, however, are often content with the
two last-named indulgences.
" Only one legitimate wife ! Just like some
peasant of the Canadian La Beauce or Sainte Marie,
or some worthy burgher of Nuremberg. It really
seems incredible.
" And how about concubines ?
" The nomad has none, never has any, and it is
rare for the sedentary Arab to indulge in such
luxuries either. One wife is all he has as a rule."
" DakJila : — The Agha Djellul - ben - el - Hadj -
Lakhdar (son of the old chief Bach - Agha, who
rules over all the tribes as far as Wargla) expresses
to the best of his ability the astonishment aroused
in his mind by our ideas about the women of his
country. About his own wife, of course, he says
never a word, to do so would be a great breach of
etiquette. But about those of others the Mussul-
man code of good manners allows him to speak
in a general way ; and this is the upshot of what
he tells me, another blow to my ideas on the
subject of the customs of the nomads.
" Firstly : the Arab woman of the Sahara is
comparatively very happy.
" Secondly : she is not shut up.
"Thirdly : she never has to work hard, and she
is never ill-treated, still less beaten, except in cases
A WORTHY AG HA. 17
of unfaithfulness to her husband when she has
been taken in the act.
" Fourthly : she has only too much influence over
her husband, and he has only too little influence
over her. As for her grown-up sons, to quote
the actual words of my informant, the mother makes
them marcher kif-kif sozis la inatraqzie and is sur
leur tete et sitr lezirs yezcx, which probably meant
that she has them completely under her thumb.
" Hum ! Hum ! I coughed politely. The good
Agha seemed such a very worthy fellow. But I
made up my mind to verify his assertions by every
means in my power, for they were so very upsetting,
confusing and revolutionary. If I once admitted
that what he said was true, what would become
of the precise and clear ideas imprinted on my
brain by the writings of my predecessors } "
I have quoted these notes verbatim, because they
turned out to be absolutely borne out by facts,
and are a revelation of the states of mind I had
to pass through. I had arrived in the Sahara
full of good intentions, meaning to observe
accurately, and well stocked with information !
I thought I knew something about the geography,
the history, the religion, and the social organization
of the people. I had tried to learn a little of the
languages, I had studied old books in Arabic, Latin,
and Greek. I had even inspected certain celebrated
2
1 8 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE ARAB RACE.
papyri, such as those in the Rainer collection at
Vienna. But, in spite of all that, I knew absolutely
nothing of the Life of the desolate country which I
felt it was to be my ,fate some day to love — nothing,
nothing whatever ; and, unfortunately, many of
those who have lived in it know no more than
I did.
Now, however, brought into direct touch with
reality, my opinions, hitherto influenced by Roman-
esque tradition, were altogether upset. It was all
the better, too, for the poetry of convention is never
equal to that of actual facts, when looked at face to
face in the full, true light of day.
I now went, every morning and every afternoon,
into the streets and alleys to hunt out curious types.
I met women packed up in their veils, followed
them, and when they went into their low houses
DRESS AND ORNAMENTS OF THE WOMEN. 19
with the tortuous entrance passages, I went in after
them without invitation. A pause would then
ensue, during which they gazed at me with unveiled
faces, either hostilely or with looks of surprise, and
I noted everything about them, including the
wretched holes, dark and bare, dignified by the
name of rooms, opening from the narrow court. All
the looms for weavino- as well as the cooking^
Utensils are kept outside ; and at the end of a kind
of den, from which all air is excluded, are the piles
of worn stones constituting the hearth, from which
issues an acrid reddish smoke. Everything is shewn
to me, and even explained, but at the same time
there remains a wall of defiance between the women
and myself, a wall I found it indeed difficult to
break through. The farther I went, whether in the
gardens of the oasis or towards the rocks at the foot
o{ the fort, where the nomads pitch their camps,
and the tent more and more constantly replaced
\}\^g2i7'bi or house, the greater did this reserve seem
to grow, till it almost deepened into hostility.
My aim was not yet attained. It is true I could
see the stuffs in which the women draped them-
selves, such as the variegated inaliffa rolled about
the body, kept in place on the shoulders by two
long silver pins called richetts ; the white oiigaya
which falls from the headdress, fastened above the
breasts with a carved ni zima ; and the red, green,
or blue silk inaharuia draped about their hair ; the
2*
20 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE ARAB RACE.
bracelets on their slender arms and the khalkhats
on their thin ankles. But their souls were abso-
lutely closed to me. I could not read their very
simplest thoughts or /understand their most ordinary
actions.
Rather discouraged by the ill-success of my
efforts, I made up for their failure by interest-
ing myself in the various occupations of the men,
who work at their forges, and do their polish-
ing, carving, embroidering, and sewing in public.
I made a great many delightful acquaintances
amongst the makers of Turkish slippers, wool
carders, leather cutters, etc., and I became quite
at home amono-st the date merchants and sellers
of beans and onions. I had long conversations
with the big-wigs, or, as they are locally called, the
big caboitsses of the neighbourhood, who used to
stroll about in the sunshine in all the majesty of
their ha'iks or lono- cloaks. And throuoh this
o o
quite a new feminine world opened out before
me.
In Europe it is through the women that one gets
to understand the men a little, and to gain some
idea of the working of their minds, with the motives
of their actions ; the mother, .the wife, the mistress
are the chief sources of information. In Southern
Algeria, or the Sahara, it was, thanks to the Arab
and Berber men, that I got to know anything about
the women. It was the masculine o-ood-will which
/ AM TAKEN FOR A TALEBA. 21
won for me the admission to the home life or heiirm
(the harem as we call it), and secured for me a
welcome there. This became more and more the
case the farther I went from civilized districts, but
at the very beginning of my travels it was evident
enough that the men must be first conciliated. In
the eyes of the notables and of the merchants I
was a taleba, or a femme savante, a sort of hybrid
between a doctor and a public writer ; one who
could concoct grievances or grant favours ; in fact,
an influential deputy, able to secure showers of
decorations and appointments. The benevolent
protection accorded to me by the military autho-
rities gave support to these ideas. Hence the
desire of many to oblige me, and of the more
disinterested hopes of others that they should see
me set right the mistakes of my predecessors
amongst the rilmis,^ as they call all foreigners.
Many poured out their own pet theories to me, but
at the same time they gave me a chance to verify
them. " You will see things as they really are,"
they would say, " you will recognize how much
better they are here than in France."
To use the popular and very expressive saying,
I was free to take it or leave it, and I probably did
get a lot of information from these men with
hobbies that I could never have gained alone. And
if the receptions which ensued, and at which the
'-* The oriijinal meanintr of the word Rihni is Roman. — Trans.
2 2 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE ARAB RACE.
women evidently had orders to be amiable at any
cost, seemed to me unnatural, forced, and artificial,
I was generally able by going to the same home
again and again to get into something like rappoi't
with my hostesses. The confidence of a woman
of the Sahara really begins exactly when she leaves
off trying to please you and treats you as an
unimportant person. She is then perfectly un-
ceremonious and goes on with her usual occupa-
tions, or she chatters with her friends, your presence
affecting her no more than that of a piece of
furniture, until she suddenly remembers you and
worries you with offers of caonah, or coffee, chokes
you with sweets, inundates you with rancid per-
fumes, and overwhelms you with caresses, exclaim-
ing : "You are my friend, you are my sister; my
house and all that It contains are yours, and so is
SUDDEN CHANGES OF MOOD. 23
the life of my children, or my own life if you want
it." And she gazes at you with her great deep
eyes, and you feel as if you were watching a soul
awakening from a sleep of long - past centuries.
The soft orbs seem to be literally melting with
passionate affection, a violent intermittent tender-
ness, lasting a few minutes only, but almost sincere
at the moment of expression. At last, however,
it is over ; the fire goes out, the coffee gets cold,
friendship folds her wings once more, and all this
love changes at need into hatred, or sullen hostility,
the unconscious reaction of over-strained nerves
after oreat excitement.
CHAPTER III.
BEAUTY AMONGST THE ARABS.
One day chance led me to a corner of an oasis
occupied by the Aulad-Ziane nomads. The crum-
bling walls of their huts of dried mud rose along
a grey lane of the colour of the desert, and the
low doors of their homes admitted only the
initiated, that is to say, the husband and a negro
gardener ; for amongst the Arabs, a negro is looked
upon as of no account — he is just a slave, a kind
of domestic servant.
The nomads of the desert often have within
what is called their kasr, or fortified village, a
magazine or a garden, sometimes both ; the former
serving as a shelter for the grain stored up for
food or barter, whilst the latter is the camping
ground, and the dates grown on the trees in it
are carried away with them when the wanderers
move on, either for their own consumption or to
be sold.
When I knocked at the low door of one of the
little huts of the Aulad-Ziane settlement I had not
26
BEAUTY AMONGST THE ARABS.
yet obtained all the diplomatic privileges I described
just now, so that the man who appeared in answer
to my summons greeted me with no titles of honour,
nor did he take me for a doctor. To him, too,
however, I was a Rumiya, or a foreigner, a
traveller who had been saluted by the spahis of
the Arab authorities ! It was easy to see from
the way in which he turned the clumsy wooden
key, several inches long, in the primitive lock of
his door, that he felt a certain deference for me,
mingled with annoyance at my appearance. For
these Saharian husbands are always jealous of any
intrusion into their homes ; they are afraid of
imprudent actions being suggested to their wives,
AN. UNWILLING GUIDE. 27
or of ideas about the emancipation of women being
put into their heads.
So he said to .me laconically, as he stretched
his arm out towards a group invisible to me :
• " The women are down there."
.' But where might " down there " be '^
I saw some square patches of garden, planted
alternately with carrots and green barley, from
which rose the hot perfume of tropical vegetation,
with here and there groups of white fig-trees now
shedding their autumn leaves ; the whole scene
bathed in the tender charm of the evening light.
And behind the rioid rows of the stiff and
symmetrical palm trees — all too stiff and sym-
metrical for beauty — the broiling sun was blazing,
before it should suddenly disappear, as it always
does, in this land where twilight is unknown.
Divine hour, not exactly of peace, but of calm and
sadness ;. instinct with the impression of nothingness
which succeeds the brilliant tragedy of the day.
" The women are down there," repeated the man
who had opened the door, and he now led the way
to them. My guide was the style of man admired
by the fair in the glorious days of what they
themselves call the fantasi'ya, one of those who
surround themselves perpetually with a cloud of
white smoke, like the aureole of noble victors in
a fight. Suddenly, however, he effaced himself,
and I came in sio-ht of the women behind an old
C3
28
BEAUTY AMONGST THE ARABS.
and leafless pomegranate tree. Poor women they
were, belonging to a poor family and wearing shabby
clothes. One of therri, the wife, was young and,
though slim and much sunburnt from living in
the desert, was really quite pretty ; the other — the
mother, not of the wife but of the husband — was
a regular wreck, wrinkled and ugly, perfectly
dried-up, so to speak. They had left their woollen
tent, which was pitched close by, for a wretched
little hovel made of bricks of dried earth, about
three feet wide by nine feet long, with no door
that would shut ; but the possession of which gave
them the proud consciousness, or rather illusion,,
of living in a house like the sedentary tribes.
AN .^RIAL CRADLE. 29
" M'sell KJicr Alikonvi /" said I, but they took
no notice of my greeting, which I stammered
out in their refractory language. They remained
silent, apparently stupefied, and it was not until
the man said something to them that they managed
to reply :
''M'sell K/ierf'
The old woman was plying a distaff, whilst the
young one was rocking a cradle, a little bassjir
as she herself would have called it, made of inter-
laced branches ; a nest without any bottom or sides,
or comforts of any kind, just a support in fact,
hung from the low roof on a rope of twisted grass.
On this, completely hidden beneath a folded carpet,
slept the baby. There was absolutely nothing else
in this " town house " but this serial bed, the
saucepan for the iiie^^ga, and two wretched old rugs
or f^^dchias to be used as coverings during the
night, now fast approaching.
I could not draw out these women in any other
way than by going through the everlasting dialogue
with which every conversation begins here.
" How are you .'^ "
" Quite well. And you ? "
" Quite well."
"And your family ?"
" Quite well."
" And all those belonging to you ? '"
" Quite well."
30 BEAUTY AMONGST THE ARABS.
" What is your name ? "
" Mesauda."
" How old are you j* "
" I do not know. Allah knows."
" How many children have you ? "
" One, there it is."
" Is it a boy ? "
" Yes."
" What is his name ? "
" The name of his fathers."
" How old is he } "
" Allah knows."
As the reader will perceive, there is not much
to be found out by this kind of conversation, and
I must add that any attempt to photograph any
of the women here was hopeless. They begin to
howl and veil their faces directly they suspect
anything of the kind, and nothing but stratagem
is ever any good.
However, I don't think I had ever yet been
so much impressed by a visit as I was on this
occasion. I don't quite understand how it was,
unless it was the harmony of the scene and the
time of day, or perhaps the cosiness of the very
small family in such a very small compass.
Somehow, during the visits I paid the next day,
the scene kept recurring to me, as it were, in spite
of myself, and I saw again the shut-in garden, from
which arose the perfume of vegetation, steeping
AJV UNSYMPATHETIC RACE. 31
in its somewhat acrid emanations, tent and house
alike of my nomad friends. Poor they were, but
not miserable ; simple but not savage ; primitive,
no doubt, but with all the sensitiveness and
reserve characteristic of the highest civilization.
Were they at all in sympathy with me ? No, not
in the least. Widely separated races never can be
in sympathy with each other in any true sense of
the word. And for this particular race which
cringes, steals, sulks and shuffles, cheating and
deceiving us on every possible opportunity, we
feel a latent contempt, such as conquerors feel for
the conquered.
32 BEAUTY AMONGST THE ARABS.
Why then should this group have constantly
recurred to my memory ? The man with his
dignified gestures, the child invisible in his little
cradle, the venerable, Sybil-like old woman, almost
sculpturesque in her immobility, and the beautiful
young wife, tall and straight, refined and delicate,
turning towards me with her finely-chiselled lips
half parted by a smile, and her dark eyes limpid
with an unfathomable expression.
I know now why I cannot get them out of my
mind. It is because they represent to me my idea
of the Beautiful.
Beauty, that many-sided and most fickle Sphinx,
had so far not occupied my thoughts much on this
journey, for too many novelties had enchained my
attention. For all that. Beauty emanates from
everything which lives, which breathes, or sighs.
But we call this beauty quaintness when it clashes
with our preconceived notions, ugliness when it
shocks our prejudices, and we only give it its true
name when it harmonizes with the ideal in our own
minds, or the yet more hackneyed one with which
our brains have been saturated by our education,
our complicated civilization, our art and our respect
for what other people think.
Beauty to us is that which appeals to our instincts
and our prejudices. It is alike the incense which
enervates us, the pungent flavour which arouses us.
There are then as many kinds of beauty as there
DIFFERENT IDEAS OF BEAUTY. zi
are races, and, moreover, in every race as many
kinds again as there are individuals. Peter's
judgment is not the same as Paul's, nor is Paul's
the same as Peter's, Everyone has different
tendencies and feelings both with regard to details
and to things as a whole. How can everyone then
be made to agree ? How can all these different
opinions be brought into harmony 'i A gigantic
task and no mistake ! So I shall just content
myself with saying that a colour, or a melody, or
some charming attitude is beautiful, that is to say,
it appears beautiful to me as a Rumiya, or to an
Arab, as the case may be. And I can only hope
the reader will not cavil at my conclusions, either
because they are too entirely or not sufficiently
my own ; I will endeavour at least that they shall
be sincere.
And yet, perhaps, there are certain scenes, certain
lights, certain eyes, which so nearly approach the
sublime that every human creature who gazes on
them cannot fail to admire them, or realize that he
is wrong if he cannot do so. I think this was
the case on that autumn evening, with the deep,
pathetic yearning eyes of my young nomad woman,
the golden beams of the setting sun as it kissed
the sand, the boundless infinity of the back-
ground beyond the white and leafless fig-trees and
the too rigid and monotonous branches of the great
Saharian palms.
3
34 BEAUTY AMONGST THE ARABS.
But, after all, can vve honestly say that the Arab
women of the Southern Sahara, not to speak as yet
of the Berbers, are ' beautiful from the European
point of view, which I suppose is primarily that
of the Greeks and Romans, and secondarily that
of Sir Edward Burne-Jones ?
Yes, and no.
In every kasr or fortified village, in every tribe,
in every dazuar* or group of tents, there are certain
very pretty women, but they are quite the excep-
tion, and those who are considered ugly certainly
fully merit the expression.
As for those who hit the happy medium between
these two extremes, they may be looked upon as
typical ; they are better looking than their sisters
in the country and in the small towns of France,
if we compare those of fifteen years old with French
girls of from eighteen to twenty.
Now what are the physical defects of these
typical women ? Scarcity of hair for one thing,
which they make up for by naive imitations
concocted out of the long hairs of camels' tails, or
* The dawar consists of a group of tents, which are removed at the
same time under the direction of a Kcbir or ancient. A collection
of dawars of the same origin forms the tribe, commanded by a Caid.
The tribes in their turn are grouped under an Agha^ and great
confederations such as that of the Larbaa under a Bach-Agha. In
some cases the place of Agha or chief of several tribes is taken by a
Caid of Ca'ids. These groups and titles are in use in the Southern
Sahara only, they are slightly different in Northern Algeria.
DEFECTS OF ARAB WOMEN. 35
of coarse dyed wool, A plentiful crop of hair is
rare, and is much coveted, so everyone tries to
seem to have immense quantities framing the
whole face, and strong enough to bear the weight
of heavy rings.
Another fault in the faces of the Arab women
is that their jaws are too heavy, and the lower one
is too prominent, but this imperfection, so marked
amongst the tribes of the Northern Sahara and
of the mountains beyond, notably the Aulad-Nail,
is much less marked in the people of the Southern
districts, and the Shaanba women are not affected
by it. However, the Arabs themselves think quite
differently from us on the subject ; they like the
aggressive chin, probably for what it suggests to
them, and for this reason they consider a Ouled-Nail
beauty more attractive than a Shaanbiya. Very
seldom indeed did a native point out "a very
beautiful woman " to me, who was not in my eyes
afflicted with the disfiguring jaw.
Another less repulsive defect is that the hips
and the legs are often too thin, but the busts are
always full and finely moulded, a distinctive beauty
of the Arab race, contrasting greatly with the
shrunken breasts of the women of the Coast
districts and those of the Turkish harems. Here
the young women have bosoms as beautiful as
those of Greek torsi of the third period ; their arms
are exquisitely formed, their necks finely curved,
36 BEAUTY AMONGST THE ARABS.
and they pose naturally in the most graceful and
dignified attitudes. \ Even when their rare fits of
anger break their ordinary calm, they are still
charming. When lying at full length on the damp
slabs of the vapour bath she delights in, an Arab
woman of the Southern districts looks like a statue
of fawn-coloured marble, chaste yet strangely self-
willed, a sort of triple hermaphrodite, if I may coin
such a name, for the upper part of her body is that
of a true woman in her freshest bloom, whilst the
torso resembles that of a European girl of thirteen,
THE CHARMS OF AN ARAB GIRL. 37
and the thighs, the knees, legs, and feet, those of
a youth, such as the well-known Greek boy ex-
tracting a thorn from his foot.
Her feet are pretty enough, however, prettier
than her hands. Her face is long, and her cheeks
are rather flat. Her forehead, tattooed with a little
design in blue, is broad and smooth, her nose is
finely modelled and her lips are mobile, but her
eyes make you forget all her other features, so
fascinatingly soft are they, so seductive in their
expression, their brightness enhanced by the use
of kohl. Such eyes would redeem faces with no
other charm, and they make up for the excessive
use of vermilion, henna, and saffron, the piles of
clothing and stuffs with which the figure is disguised,
and the various odours emitted from them, in
which musk and what they call krounfell pre-
dominate.
The freer the race is from Berber taint the
browner is the complexion, and the brown varies
in depth of colour according to worldly position ;
the wealthy, and therefore idle, families of the
sedentary tribes having clear skins of a brownish
ivory colour, whilst the poor nomads, who are
exposed to the heat of the sun and the sultry
wind of the desert, are very much tanned. The
pink and white complexions, which are of pretty
frequent occurrence amongst the Arabs, betray the
admixture of another strain of blood of some
38 BEAUTY AMONGST THE ARABS.
avowed or clandestine union of ancestors. The
true unmixed Arab face is still that of Arabia, and
of those fair dwellers in the Gardens of the Blest
who, according to Mohammed, are to reward the just
who on this earth keep to the paths of righteousness.
" The faithful," says the prophet, " shall have
given to them virgins with large black eyes,
whose complexions will be of the colour of the
carefully hidden eggs of the ostrich." (Koran :
Surah xxxvii. 47.) " They shall have beauties who
will gaze at them tenderly with eyes of the colour of
the pearls in a necklace." (Koran : Surah Ixi. 22.)
And in the Song of Songs, in which Solomon
lovingly describes the charms of the Shulamite,
the picture is completed of a type still to be met
with here and there shrouded beneath the veils
which no male Rvniis, as the Arabs call all
foreigners, has the right to lift.
" Thy teeth," says Solomon in this wonderful
love-song, " are like a flock of sheep that are even
shorn, which come up from the washing
thy lips are like a thread of scarlet and thy speech
is comely ; thy temples are like a piece of a
pomegranate within thy locks .... Thy
two breasts are like two young roes that are
twins which feed among the lilies .... Thy
lips drop as the honey-comb ; honey and milk are
under thy tongue and the smell of thy garments
is like the smell of Lebanon."
AN IMPASSIONED APPEAL.
39
A rhapsody forming, indeed, a fitting reply to
the impassioned appeal of the beloved one to the
lover, in which she exclaims : " Let him kiss me
with the kisses of his mouth : for thy love is better
than wine ; because of the savour of thy good
ointments thy name is as an ointment poured forth,
therefore do the virgins love thee."
Alas ! the seductive charm of the Arab woman
fades all too soon. The beautiful, graceful, but
half-washed little Arab girl is like the buds of a
magnolia soiled by the dust of the streets. Time
slips quickly past, coquetry awakens, the sap flows
quickly in the veins, and then comes the opening
flower, quickly burnt up by the sun, so that it
is faded almost before it has really lived.
40 BEAUTY AMONGST THE ARABS.
I have seen two or three well-preserved women
who were still beautiful at thirty, but they were
quite the exception, and in generalizing the ex-
ceptions must be ignored. Poor, poor withered
flowers ! The only consolation they have for their
early decay is, amongst the great ladies of the big
tents, to hide its ravages by paint, and, amongst
their poorer sisters, to meet their lot with resigna-
tion. But what is to make up to us foreigners
for all the wrinkled faces and prematurely decrepit
figures we see in the desert ? This : the beauty
of that desert is not all concentrated in its women ;
and the woman of the desert, to be in harmony
with the spirit of its wide solitudes, has need
of nothing but her own natural gestures, quite
apart from what is strictly called beauty.
RAPID TRAVELLING OF NEWS. 41
CHAPTER IV.
A DIFFICULT CHAPTER.
I HAVE now to write the most difficult chapter of
my book, which may possibly get me into disgrace
with certain husbands in Southern Algeria and the
Sahara.
For the fact is, even those who do not read a
word of our language know everything which is
written about them or their wives or their country.
It is, alas ! quite impossible for an author to hide
his or her light under a bushel ! Everything is
known in the land of sun and sand — everything,
absolutely everything — which is said or written or
even hinted about the Southern districts, or the
Desert. News, however trifling or insignificant,
is spread abroad in mysterious ways, added to,
transformed, and hushed up according to fancy. It
travels from kasr to dawar, from dawar to caravan,
to the great sand hills of Ergesh on the west, to
Air or Asben in the south, to In-Salah in the oases
of Tuat, to Timbuktu, to the Egyptian Sudan, and
comes back again, sometimes by sea and sometimes
42 A DIFFICULT CHAPTER.
by land, to make) what may perhaps be aptly called
a second walking newspaper tour ; only by this time
the original items of intelligence are so exaggerated
and so disfigured, that the mediums of their
transmission do not recognize them.
Unfortunately, however, the second incognito
tour takes place before the first. Moreover, my
earnest desire to hurt nobody's feelings, above all
not to wound those who have welcomed and helped
me, is very hampering. I hesitate. Shall I or
shall I not express my opinion ? In the end I
reply to my own question : " Truth is one and
indivisible, to hold my peace would be treason
to her."
I feel bound, in fact, if I am to give any true
picture of the life of the Saharian women, to touch
on the delicate question of their code of morals.
People know only too well what that of the men is,
whether they be Arabs or Berbers. But how about
the women ? — I mean the wives or future wives,
ignoring those who omit the ceremony of marriage
altogether.
Now, it seems to me, though it is a hard thing
to say, that the women have no code of morals
properly so called, for they are more like the
gazelles and the cats to which I likened them above,
than to responsible human beings. No one would
talk of the morals of a pet gazelle or cat, shut
up from all possible communion with its fellow-
A MISCHIEF-MAKING GO-BETWEEN. 43
creatures, and that is really what the Arab and
Berber women are supposed to be by the men
to whom they belong. They cannot get out, so
where is the merit of their stopping in ? But it so
happens that, in spite of all the locks and keys,
they do get out sometimes, purely, be it explained,
for the fun of the thing, rather than for any evil
purpose. And, alas that it should be said ! there
is always some evil-minded go-between, generally
an old woman, ready to turn indiscretion into real
mischief The husband makes fast the outer door
with heavy bolts and strews sand outside it, that
any trespassing footprints may remain as witness
against intruders, but it is quite easy to get out by
the terrace at the back, which is connected with the
low wall above the narrow street. The go-between
gets admission on some pretext, such as having
fresh sweetmeats to sell, or she comes to beg alms,
and when the master is safely away at the Moorish
cafe, listening to the local gossip, or amusing
himself in a less innocent way, the whole thing is
easily enough arranged. The next morning, the
master of the house will examine the sand on the
threshold, and say to himself: " There is old Bielle
the negro's footprint, and that was left by the nurse,
and there is my own, but, Allah be praised, little
Zorah's is not there ! " Poor deluded fellow ! his
little Zorah jumped down like a cat from the wall
at the back into the street as soon as her gaoler's
44
A DIFFICULT CHAPTER.
back was turiled, and you saw nothing, heard
nothing, knew nothing, or if you had any suspicions
you kept them to yourself, for fear of ridicule or
from an unacknowledged dread of some malignant
jinn or evil spirit having been at work.
In the dawar of the nomad tribes intrigues are
alike more easily arranged and more romantic
than in the towns. They are carried on between
children of the same soil and of the same race,
and there is about them something of the fierce
passion characteristic of primitive manners. When
the shades of night are just beginning to yield to
the sweet influences of the tremulous dawn, at that
witching moment when a glamour is thrown over
everything, a corner of the tent is stealthily raised,
and the lover, with bated breath and hushed foot-
steps, glides into the very arms of the adored one.
A MUCH-NEEDED WARNING.
45
But beware, ye foolish ones ! Be not too sure that
the jealous husband is not on the watch ; for if
he is he may kill you both, or if he does not go
so far as that he will certainly accuse him who has
"robbed his tent " before the Cadi, and try to salve
the wounds to his honour by extorting a good
many dollars from the offender, so that the hour
which began with kisses may very possibly end
in tears.
This kind of thing goes on in the town, the kasr,
or beneath the burning open sky, with a simplicity,
a naivetd, which is almost innocent, it is so utterly
natural and unsophisticated. The fact is. It is not
fair to judge these children of the desert by our own
European standard, they are of a type so utterly
different to any with which we are familiar. The
46 A DIFFICULT CHAPTER.
sensuality is physical only, it does not affect the
soul in the least. Highly nervous, impulsive and
passionate, with but little intellect, the women of
the Sahara are not depraved and their lapses from
the straight path do not leave any real stain upon
them. Old women quite forget the slips of their
youth ; they were to them so natural, so entirely
a matter of course, that they do not see any
inconsistency in preaching to young girls on the
subject of modesty, and over their own past a
kind of delicate veil is thrown, which takes the
place of the chastity on which they never set any
real value.
Of course, I did not find all this out at first. The
remarks I have just made are the result of long
study on the spot, and I need not dwell more on
a painful subject, only I want my readers to bear
what I have said in mind and to remember the
significant native proverb :
" Virtue will flourish amongst us when salt
germinates and coal puts forth sprouts."
THE BIG ARAB CAFE AT EL AGHUAT.
THE PARIS OF THE SAHARA. 49
CHAPTER V.
MORE ABOUT EL-AGHUAT.
Whilst I was still at El-Aghuat I began to be
troubled with conscientious scruples, lest I should
be seeing things too much from the European point
of view, or note only such manners and customs as
have been modified by French influence. I therefore
determined to carry out my original project : to go
forth across the limitless plains and seek for sure
information beneath the vast dome of heaven and
in the distant tent of the wandering Arab.
Now back again, after many wanderings and many
a halt, I do homage to El-Aghuat as an admirable
centre ot exact information for those who know how
to get at it. It is indeed the Paris of the Sahara,
the Capital dreamt of and longed for by the sokhrar,
or camel driver, as he plods along beside his clumsy-
looking animals in their slow and leisurely progress
across the sands. As the sokhrars keep vigil
beneath the stars, they talk together in enthusiastic
terms of the beautiful dancers and the brilliant cafes
of El-Aghuat, where on the earthen floor in the low
4
so MORE ABOUT EL-AGHUAT.
narrow rooms the luxury of a mat can be obtained,
and the primitive earthenware stove is adorned by
a magnificent coffee-pot which cost no less than
thirty-five sous. Yes, it is just that, the life of the
people is concentrated in the capital, and, however
modified by distance, that capital is held in loving
memory by them wherever they may be.
I remember many exciting adventures I had in
my wanderings whilst I was at El-Aghuat. The
mornings were delightful, and I had to make the
most of them, for the broiling heat of noon came all
too quickly. How golden was the light, how
pearl-like the sky, in those fair early hours when
the spices in the market seemed redder, gleaming
like splashes of blood ; when even the poor weary
camels, resting near their discharged loads of tellis,
or strong striped bags made of the fibres of alfa,
looked poetic, the sunshine touching their coarse hair
with glory and bathing them and the wretched
objects about them in a kind of peaceful joy, of
which they themselves were probably quite
unconscious.
The markets in the Sahara are not in the least like
those held in France, or even like the gay, many-
coloured displays of Spain, and of countries under
Turkish domination. If it were not for a few
emerald-coloured children's robas, as they call frocks,
the green note so effective in markets would be
altogether wanting. The market consists chiefiy
AI\r EA GER COMPE TITION. 5 1
of a few radishes and onions, wretched-looking
vegetables, wrung as it were from the dry soil, with
here and there equally wretched little bunches of
corn or of barley. I saw three bits of dry wood,
about which quite an eager crowd of speculators
had gathered, and a yet more keen competition was
going on round a donkey and two sheep. The fate
of a whole family — babies in arms and little toddlers,
old grandmothers and camels — hung upon the result,
the sum at issue being quite an insignificant one.
Only the young women were absent, for they never
appear in public here. Even those who go about
freely in the dawar, where the custom of the veil
has not yet been introduced, would not dare to
show themselves in the town.
Even after all the bargaining the decision of the
buyer must be patiently waited for, and there is
always a long break between the tumult and ex-
citement of the morning and what may be called
the Petite Boiwse of the evening. Nothing to do
all the weary hours but to wait, wait, wait, drinking
a few cups of caoua/i, or coffee, and invoking the
Holy Prophet — May Allah preserve him. Amen !
All along the ramparts of the north similar
scenes, slightly varied according to locality, are to
be witnessed. A lover of paradox might indeed
assert, without much exaggeration, that the nomad
of the desert can be better studied in the market
of El-Aghuat than in his own dawar, at all events
52
MORE ABOUT EL-AGHUAT.
unless a long stay can be made in that dawar. For
when he is " at home," the man of the desert
is either asleep, away at the chase, or taking his
animals out in search of pasture. The old woman
meanwhile, when " at home," is busy over the
various avocations which appear to us so puerile.
Whereas in the market, camped upon the hot
ground, beneath the shadow of the walls or under
the swaying branches of the lofty palm trees, the
simple-hearted folk are seen to very much greater
advantage. Intense curiosity, which, however,
they dissemble as much as possible, rouses them,
for a time at least, out of their mental apathy and
sets free their souls. There they rest in idleness,
divine idleness, as sweet as honey — el kessel kif
I'assel — from their dreary marches and arduous
toil.
AT THE IV ASHING PLACES. 53
But now the time changes, so does the scene
and its setting, and all along the southern ramparts
I wander unweariedly beneath the rays of the
setting sun. Here there is water, precious water
from the subterranean wady. There are women
prattling and children laughing together. One
washing-place succeeds another, long narrow basins
level with the soil, frequented by washerwomen in
bright garments picturesquely tucked up, who beat,
soap and wring out the red maliffas or the blue
veils, gaily dipping in the running water their
khalkJials, or heavy flat or rounded silver anklets
and their golden bracelets, of both of which they
often wear a great number.
This was my first and I may also say my chief
school in what I shall call agricultural familiarity.
For although in theory young women do not go
to the washing-places any more than they do to
other public places, it is only the newly-married
wives, who have kept house but for a few months,
or at the most a few years, who really keep away.
There may be seen timid-looking young girls, big
girls of marriageable age, such as are generally
shut up at home, women still fresh and attractive,
who are met with nowhere else except on the great
occasion of a wedding. Very charming it all is,
too, as they greet each other, chat together, joke
and tease each other in their clear ringing voices :
" Ya Fatma i " " Ya Mabruka ! " they cry,
54 MORE ABOUT EL-AGHUAT.
pushing each other about good-humouredly and
splashing each other in fun. A pin falls out, a
neckerchief slips down, a tress of hair is uncovered ;
but if a man happens to pass, especially a Rtuni,
the veils are all quickly closed, the twittering in the
aviary stops all at once. What a pity ! but never
mind, just wait a minute ; when the intruder is out
of sight the warbling will begin again, and will be
all the more eager to make up for the tiresome
interruption. These chattering birds have claws
and sharp beaks.
I approach in my turn.
" May thy day be a happy one, oh Rumiya ! "
" May all blessing be upon thee."
" How art thou ? "
" Well."
"And thy family } "
"Well."
" And all belonging to thee ?"
"Well."
And so on.
This is how the Arab women always address me.
I am to them the Rumiya, or foreign lady, who
interests them so much and whom they adore, or
at least protest to me that they do.
I press their wet hands and help an old lady to
readjust upon her bald head a big turban which
has got out of place, through its owner's too
vigorous gestures.
NA'iVE QUESTIONS.
55
May
"May Allah reward thee, oh Rumiya!
He increase thy wealth ! "
And so on, patiti, patita !
As I said before, they are like twittering birds.
Of course they belong to quite the lower classes ;
a grand lady would never demean herself by going
to the washinpf-basins with their floatino; masses of
frothy soap-suds.
" Tell me, oh Rumiya ! Do they wash linen
in thy country ? " asks one of the women, who
evidently has her doubts on the subject of French
cleanliness. Exclamations and questions are now
poured out, and my usual companion, little Milud-
ben-Ch'tiui, whose name will often recur in these
pages, is overwhelmed with enquiries.
" Oh, Milud, can thy mistress, the Rumiya,
spin wool ? "
56 MORE ABOUT EL-AGHUAT.
" Oh, Milud, why does she wear no jewels ? "
This not wearing ornaments astonishes them
more than anything. They have quite made up
their minds that I am rich, for I travel about without
being obliged, and some one saw a five-franc piece
in my purse the other day, so rich I undoubtedly
am. But to be rich and sport neither bracelets,
finger nor ear-rings, when they — though they are
only women of the people — never take theirs off,
is altogether beyond their comprehension.
" My jewels, thou must understand, are a part
of me!" they declare, adding: "We do not take
our ornaments off, because we must enjoy them
now, in this passing hour, for they will be nothing
to us when we are dead."
" I have seen thee before, oh Rumiya," says
one, " I saw thee at the house of this one or
that."
" Perhaps thou didst. If thou wilt, I will go
to thy house to-morrow."
But I get no answer to this insinuating sugges-
tion. They all hope I shall come near enough
to them for them to touch my clothes, but they
are frightened at the idea of my actually going to
see them. I shall go, however, but not just yet
awhile, so as not to alarm them too much. Then
I begin to talk about something else, and watch
them beating the linen with the big club of palm-
wood they use for the purpose.
A NEGRESS WASHF.KWOMAN.
SIMPLE DOMESTIC UTENSILS. 59
" Fare thee well, oh Rumiya ! ' they all say
as I turn away, but before I left the young girls
had all disappeared, because they had seen some
soldiers strolling towards the gate of the town ;
and now there were only the poor old grandmothers
with their dyed hair, and the little children with
their solemn faces, who were pummelling each other
with their hsts as they squatted in the huge gtiecas,
as the big dishes are called, made of a single piece
of wood cut horizontally from some tree of great
diameter, which are used for making the rissoles
of meat and flour called koiiskous by the Arabs, as
well as for carrying the washing, the domestic
utensils being of the simplest, consisting merely
in fact of a bowl such as this, a sieve for straininof
the alfa, and one saucepan. I must not forget to
add that besides the Arab women there were a
good many negresses at the washing-place, some
hired from the country, others the wives of
gardeners, or the servants of the well-to-do, many
of them formerly slaves, accidentally liberated for
one reason or another.
I tore myself away at last and went further on
to similar washing-places, where I found everything
as bright and the women as playful and kitten-like
as they had been in the scene I had just quitted.
The limpid water, the ornaments of silver or of
gold, the bead necklaces, the dark eyes and the
white teeth ; all alike shone, gleamed, and sparkled
6o MORE ABOUT EL-AGHUAT.
in the hot oblique evening rays, whilst the colours
of the robes in which the supple figures of the
daughters of the Desert were draped, and of the
garments spread out to dry on the burning sand,
deep violet or vivid green and yellow, simply
vibrated in the vivid light.
Shall I be accused of preferring the women of the
people ? Well, perhaps I do, for how can I describe
my ceremonious intercourse with the wives of
dignitaries, of native aristocrats of long descent,
portly townswomen who have adopted the customs
of the North and the fashions of Algiers ? I was
well enough received, it is true, but the courtesy
for which I am indebted to them was not exactly
that of the Sahara. Their all too transparent
pretty speeches, their very artificial manners and
the ornaments of their reception rooms, such as
gorgeous clocks on rickety marqueterie stands, are
all alike constant reminders to me that the true
Desert expires at the gates of Algiers. It is else-
where — far, far away from it — that I must go to look
for those I seek : the natural, simple, unaffected,
I may almost say wild, daughters of the Sahara,
such as was, probably, Hagar, the mother of
Ishmael.
Yes ; elsewhere, far, far away, in the desert
solitudes, or I may perhaps meet with some of
them in the wretched Ch'tett suburb, from which
one can see the straight line of the horizon, where
EVENING IN THE CH'TETT SUBURB. 6i
earth and heaven meet. Here the children of the
town, mixed with those of the nomads, whose
tents are pitched in the Desert hard by, play with
their favourite knuckle-bones or pan pipes. Here,
about five o'clock, old men with palsied limbs,
and blind men of rigid aspect led by some little
grandchild, come to pray, whilst in the narrow
picturesque alleys the women come and go, gliding
furtively from door to door. At sight of me they
flee away as if terrified, but very soon they reappear
armed with their distaffs, each surmounted by a
bunch of feathers. Thev surround me and beo-in
to ply me with inquisitive questions, and with their
62 MORE ABOUT EL-AGHUAT.
endless set greetings, " May all happiness attend
thee," etc., etc. They tease each other, gesticulate,
frolic together, run and dance about with mincing
steps and fawn upon me all at the same time.
Very typical is it all of the Orient, but the
African Orient, the Orient of Arabia and Judaea,
with its tinsel frippery no doubt, but without the
lassitude and languor generally associated with the
Orient.
In the quaint old hilly quarter of the town, for
instance, I one day saw a young girl of about
thirteen or fourteen coming down a tortuous street,
carrying a bowl of steaming soup, her slender
fineers, with the nails stained with henna, almost
meeting as she clasped the rough earthenware,
and carefully threaded her way along on her bare
feet, the fringed eyelids drooping over the soft dark
eyes, as she looked down lest she should trip on
some obstacle in her path. Her dress was of some
purple hue, the deep purple of the after-glow when
the sun has set. A thin white wrap called an
otigaya floated about her delicate face and shoulders.
Where was she going ? On some errand of mercy,
or to some humble meal ? I cannot tell why, but
somehow the former idea took complete hold of
my fancy. And I was right, for a woman standing-
near me certainly pronounced the word sadaya,
which means almsgiving. As the child disappeared,
her veil made me think, in spite of the sacrilege of
A MADONNA-LIKE ARAB GIRL. 63
the idea, of that worn by Mary, or, as the Arabs
call her, Miriam, the mother of Jesus.
The little maid had indeed the gentle, modest
bearing, the child-like grace, of some Virgin on her
way to the Temple to offer at the altar her vessel of
burning oil.
A dove with soiled plumage, it is true, my little
sister of mercy, but a dove for all that.
In every house I enter the women gather about
me to examine me as closely as possible. My
clothes interest them very much. They greatly
covet a Cheviot tweed skirt I wear, of quite cheap
material, which they consider "very fine stuff," and
they express great surprise when I declare that I
admire their loose, floating garments. Then all
of a sudden they seemed quite indignant because
I suggested that one of them should put my hat on
64 MORE ABOUT EL-AGHUAT.
her head for a minute. It would be a sin, a horrible
sin, to cover the skull of a true believer with the
baretta of an infidel !
" May Allah preserve us from such a thing! Our
house is thine, oh Rumiya, but thy baretta might
lose us our place in Paradise, and that of our
children and our children's children."
Directly I appear in a house there is a bustle to
prepare coffee for me. It is only people of note
who have to take it, such people as the Rumiya,
the mother of the family, and the most important
neighbours, for instance. Young girls do not drink
it and children are too young they say. But I, un-
fortunate victim of convention, have to absorb an
incalculable number of cups a day ; one cup where
I am a stranger, two or three w^hen I visit my
" friends." Besides this, I must eat many cakes, and
some of what they call kessra, a kind of bread, eaten
hot, made without leaven and baked in the ashes,
in very general use in these parts, to all which are
added preparations of fruit and dates. " Eat, eat,"
they all say ; '* our house is thine ! "
Our conversations are often somewhat noisy.
Each one has a story to relate, and the stories are
long and dreary. Then they tell me all about the
weddings which are to come off ; I hear all the
virtues of the father, or of the bridegroom. I am
expected to listen to accounts of the children of
each of the women present ; how many she has.
INSATIABLE CURIOSITY OF ARAB WOMEN. 65
whether they are girls or boys, how old they are,
all about their birth, the anxiety their ailments have
caused, every remark from me leading to interruption
and additional information from the others. But
the curiosity I myself inspire swallows up my
own, so to speak, for every enquiry I make is
answered by a question,
"Why do you travel?" An enquiry repeated
under a thousand forms.
" Tell us, oh Rumiya, when thou returnest to
thy beloved Paris, wilt thou spend all thy time
playing cards ? "
" Wilt thou eat a lot of cakes ? "
" Wilt thou put on thy jewels, which thou hast
not worn on thy journey ? "
Always this question of jewels, which pursued me
to Ghardaya, to Wargla, and to the most remote
limits of my exploring expedition. The women
have at last found the reason for my eccentricity :
I do not wear my jewels because I am afraid of
losing them. As for getting them to believe that I
have none, or that if I have they are not like
theirs, I give it up. And in the end I say " yes "
to everything. " Yes, when I am back in Paris I
shall play cards all day long, I shall eat quantities
of cakes, I shall put on my jewels and my gold
coins." Now at last they are satisfied, and I have
imprinted yet another error on their brains just to
purchase a little peace for myself!
5
66
MORE ABOUT EL-AGHUAT.
When I go unexpectedly into the quieter quarter
of the seg2iias, my entrance does not cause quite such
a commotion. Generally speaking I find the young
women occupied in getting ready the evening meal,
weaving carpets or spinning wool, etc., whilst their
elders are busy preparing the woof, or are fetching
wood for the fire. Then if I am already known to my
hostess a confidential chat begins, and I watch the
women at their work, which is interesting without
being arduous, admiring their graceful, almost volup-
tuous attitudes. They are only rapid in their move-
ments when they run from one room to another — I
have already described what wTetched places these
rooms are — or when they hurry down the steps
without railings leading from the terrace to the
AN INDIGNANT PROTEST. 67
lower room to fetch me the inevitable caotia/i, of
which I swallow down the grounds with smiling
resignation, just as I accept the cup from which
their painted lips have drunk.
" Drink ! I have tasted it ! Thou art my friend,
my sister ; our house is thine !
The husband of one of these friends of mine
works in certain gardens of which he is the owner,
that of another is a merchant in something, I am
sure I don't know what ; these two men are
brothers, and their old mother is present at my
interview with the wives, gloating over the praises
she hears of her sons.
" Why should our husbands beat us, oh Rii-
miya ? In the name of Allah, what can a man
have to find fault with when the court has been
swept and his winter bournouses have been spun
and the merga (or soup)* is ready to be poured
from the saucepan the moment he enters the
house, after the prayer of the Maghrib."
They are very indignant at hearing that the
Rumis of France think they are often ill-treated by
their husbands,
"May they be anathema!" they say. "We do
just what we like, oh Riimiya, we buy the food
we know is best. We bring our children up just
* The kouskous so often referred to are cooked in the steam
from this soup, which resembles what the French call the bouillon de
pot-au-feu.
r#
68 MORE ABOUT EL-AGHUAT.
as we please, as long as we train them in the path
of justice and mercy. The money we earn by our
work is our own, and will be, as long as it pleases
Allah to let it be so."
All this is not, of course, said in such consecutive
sentences as these, but comes out in exclamations
abruptly repeated again and again, with sighs of
indignation and regret. Then yet another cup of
caouah is poured out for me, to cement our friend-
ship and mark our confidence in each other. The
neighbours, who have come in one by one, watch
me drink it, and the peace of the hour wraps us
about, whilst gentle hands press mine, their owners
stealing their way into my heart.
" Thou art of gold, oh Rumiya ! "
It is true enough that they do what they like in
the segziias, but they do it secretly and with circum-
spection. It was edifying to see these Fatmas,
Aishas or Yaninas, when the Sidi, the husband or
the father, himself escorted me to his home. In
addition to the respect shewn to me personally, of
which I have already spoken, there was a marked
deference to the master, quite superficial, no doubt,
and the result merely of training in good manners,
but still it was there. If by chance the husband
knows how to read the Koran, the deference be-
comes something like religious veneration. " He
knows what Allah and the Prophet of Allah say ! "
exclaim the wives. For all that, however, this
TJVO DISOBEDIENT DAUGHTERS. 69
veneration is often only skin deep, as betrayed by
the following proverb, current among the women :
" Before the Sidi my tongue says ' Yes, yes,'
but behind his back it turns round and says,
' No, no.' "
When an Arab woman is not fiercely jealous she
is always ready to praise her husband. She
proudly shows off the presents he has given her,
such as jewels, materials for dresses and finery.
The husband gives the wife the money for the
jewel she covets, and she takes it to the Jew gold-
smith, who melts it to make the vzzima, or
brooch, or the vichariffes, or earrings, she
orders. Quantities of silver coins and Louis-d'ors
are thus converted every year into barbaric jewel-
lery, not to speak of the actual 20 or 100 franc
pieces worn just as they are.
An Arab woman glories in her husband's wisdom
and boasts of his influence, but she delights in
going where he does not wish her to go and doing
what he has forbidden. It is just the same with
the unmarried girls who are still under the sur-
veillance of father and mother. For instance, I
remember meeting two pretty young sisters who
were amongst my friends, at a wedding, and they
said to mie : " Whatever you do, oh Rumiya, do
not mention to our lord and father that you saw us
here, for we are come against his orders."
O
Then when the wedding procession was to file
7°
m6re about EL-AGHUAT.
out into the street they wrapped themselves up in
one huge veil, with such pretty graceful motions
of their supple little figures towards each other that
I could not help being charmed, and thus disguised
they passed beneath the very beard of the dreaded
Argus, who happened to be there at the moment.
He looked at them without the slightest suspicion
who they were. They breathed heavily beneath
the white covering, and when they laughed there
was much fluttering of the nialiffa. With the one
eye left visible and the one little finger holding the
drapery against the swelling young bosoms, each
girl made me some mischievous little signs, rogues
that they were ! But for all their temerity they
were really very frightened, and an hour later,
when they were laughing over their adventures at
the house of the bridegroom, with veils thrown
aside, they were still trembling. Their cheeks
glowed with delight beneath the dye put on for the
ceremony.
" The Sidi never recognized us ! " they cried,
" he did not know us in the least ! "
It was a victory, and I seemed to them an
accomplice in their success, as they began again
the endless refrain : *' Thou art our friend, our
sister ! "
It was on this occasion, too, that I first re-
member hearing the typical Oriental expression of
cajoling endearment.
A CHARMING OLD LADY. 73
" Oh, Rumiya, give me that piece of tulle thou
art wearing, and I will put it over my face that I
may feel thy very presence about me."
Amongst themselves they say all manner of
tender things like that, reminding one of the
fawning motions of a purring cat, until something
suddenly reveals the sharp claws beneath the velvet
paws, ready to rend and wound.
But I must tear myself away from these now
familiar scenes, for the time has come to leave
El-Aghuat and go to other his?h' less civilized
and altogether more unadulterated. Farewell,
farewell to many a home in which I was welcomed,
and to which I was always glad to return, though
I have not yet been able to describe them. I
remember one in particular, where there was a
dear old grandmother, an Hajajah, or one who
had made the pilgrimage to Mecca or Cairo, who
interested me extremely on account of the serene
philosophy of her old-fashioned ideas. She was
in fact one of those widows who, alone of her sex
in these parts, offer up prayers or go to the mosque,
and who are greatly honoured by the men. Then
there was her little grandson, a charming urchin
of six years old, whom I called El-Farrudje, or
the Cock, because he was so fond of strutting on
the terrace imitating the noises of the poultry yard.
The pigeons cooed, the blue shadows deepened
I
74 MORE ABOUT EL-AGHUAT.
beneath the pillared portico, for it was a real house,
the home of well-to-do citizens. There was a carpet
on the floor beneath the arcades and a portrait of
the Shereef of Mecca pinned against the wall.
And on the top of a trunk there were some
empty bottles, serving as candlesticks. Unwonted
luxury !
Adieu, dear old grandmother ! i\dieu, little
grand - daughters ! Adieu. El-Farrudje ! I have
promised to come back again some day. Yes, I
must come back !
I wend my way along the so-called Marguerite
Avenue in the Rumi, or foreign quarter. The
sun is beginning to set, and everywhere I can see
the proud Caids strolling about attended by their
courts. It is the hour for the promenade, when
people exchange news and gossip about politics.
There are no shrill cries here of " L'aJilib !
L all lib ! " or " milk ho ! " no little girls offering
'' Krubs zitdjs!'' or bread for sale; such things
would be considered quite beneath the dignity of
this aristocratic quarter. They are all very well for
the rabble, but they won't do here, where everyone
is of noble birth and dignified bearing, and where
people walk about slowly as becomes those of good
position.
And all the time in the densely populated Aulad-
Nail settlement, down there in the steep street,
the men are taking their rest during this time of
AN OLD BKGGAR.
ARAB PRAYER AT NIGHTFALL. 77
repose in a different way, each seated at the
threshold of his own hut, for every family has a
separate dwelling, these dwellings being closely
crowded together, with here and there an Arab
cafe, from which, every evening, proceeds the noise
of a mixed concert of tambourines, viols and reickas,
or clarionets. Though it is now almost dark, the
golden ornaments worn by the x\ulad-Nail gleam
brightly, the flute-players are glad to rest their
cheeks, swollen with much blowing, the violinists
are repairing their strings. Someone is frying
cakes hard by, and the soft air of twilight is laden
with the acrid smell of hot honey. And in the
narrower and steeper streets leading out of the
principal square the old beggars are climbing up
in the hope of getting some kouskotts, lugging
along the inevitable old pots they always carry :
Ya aJibab Rebbi ! " Oh, ye friends of the chief! "
Night falls upon the town, and from the tops
of all the mosques ring out the benedictions of
the prayer of 'Asha : *
" God is greater than all ! Allah akbar ! "
* This is the prayer of supper-time, or night. The Moslems have
five times of prayer : i. Subh, or dawn ; 2. Dkohr, or noon ; 3. ^Asr,
or afternoon ; 4. Maghrib, or sunset ; and 5. 'Asha, or after dark. —
Trans.
THE KASR, OR FORTIFIED VIILAGE. 79
CHAPTER VI.
THE WOMEN OF THE KUSUR.
The word Kiisilr is the plural of Kasr, and it is
a very difficult one to translate. Indeed, as is the
case with all definite names in use in the Sahara,
it is almost impossible to find an exact equivalent
in any European language.
The kasr, in which will be found many women
of Arab race much modified by the admixture of
Berber blood, is a fortified villaofe, the refuQ^e of
Arabs who are not nomads, or, to be strictly
accurate, who only now and then lead a semi-nomad
life. Grey walls, with loopholes for windows, grey
hovels, grey alleys — the colour of the sandy earth
of which they are built, stolen from the desert,
but gradually returned to it, grain by grain and
shred by shred, by the wind, which is ever eating
away the very materials of the buildings.
Crowded together in the kasr are men, women,
and children — traders, camels, and female dancers,
whilst near the kasr is the oasis, with its dusty
palms and quaint-looking wells, and all around
8o
THE WOMEN OF THE KUSUR.
stretches the Sahara — sand, sand, nothing but sand,
far away to the wide horizon, that undeviating mono-
tonous Hne 'twixt earth and heaven. The dreary
expanse of the desert is scarcely broken here and
there by dunes and slight eminences or clumps of
alfa and scattered bones, gleaming white beneath
the burning sun of the day and the dew of the
-««&
^w _
p^^
E
1^
, 1^
mm^g»er
t
night, for, although I am quite at a loss to explain
the phenomenon, there actually is dew at night in
spite of the all-pervading dryness of the soil.
The nomads pitch their tents in the shelter of
the walls of the kasr, and now and then caravans
halt outside them, so that the kasr is the meeting-
place, and the exchange mart where pretty well
everything is sold, from dates to caresses. Indeed,
CHARACTERISTIC SAHARIAN KUSJ^R. 8i
the kasr of to-day reproduces a state of society
but little altered since its grey gloom was the
longed-for goal of a race very different from ours,
and of an age long gone by, for the soul which
looks out of the eyes of those who dwell there now,
is wonderfully like that of the old wandering tribes.
It seems as if the very spirit of the past — of a past
so remote that its memory is dim — were gazing at
us from those dark orbs, as if imprisoned souls,
who never lived on earth, were making to us a
mute appeal.
Everything and everybody is closely huddled
together within the crumbling mud walls of the
kasr, and its inhabitants might be the contem-
poraries of those who fed their flocks in the deserts
of Arabia from that of Nefood to that of Dahna
long before the time of Mohammed. I am not now,
it must be remembered, speaking of the kusur
of the Berber mountains, but of those of the Aulad-
M'zi, which may be characterized as sentinels on
the borders of the Sahara, of those kusur in which
the Arab element — of later date than the Berber
— has impressed its manners, customs, and ideas
on the older residents, without being corre-
spondingly affected by theirs ; for, at the most,
the sedentary habits of the Berbers have taken
very little root amongst the Arabs.
Nothing, in fact, is more truly Arab in every
respect than are these little villages in which
6
9
82 THE WOMEN OF THE KUSljR.
the Inhabitants certainly cannot claim to be of
pure Arab race.
There are five kusiir belonging to the Aulad-
M'zi : namely, Ain-Mahdi, Tadjemut, El-Hauita,
El-Assafia, and Kasr-el-Hiran. In the South, how-
ever, where the Shaanba live, the kasr is of
rare occurrence, the wandering tribes, properly so
called — who travel for long distances — are afraid
of being brought under any control, even if purely
nominal, and are content with mere temporary
shelters for themselves and their grain, which they
set up in the open desert near the groups of
tents belonging to other races, whereas the kusur
of the Aulad-M'zi enumerated above are regular
towns of an almost permanent character, the noble
origin and antiquity of which are a source of pride
to their inhabitants, who boast to the people of the
other kusur of their civil wars as if they were
titles of honour.
The warlike villages of the Aulad-M'zi, each
with its own Caid, who, in his turn, is under a
Caid of Caids, or an Agha living at a distance,
afford us a very good idea of what El-Aghuat was
two centuries, or less than two centuries, ago. But
El-Aghuat has changed, whilst the little kasr has
remained the same near its waterless wady. If
by chance an Arab lieutenant, or some official
bringing orders from the Agha, ventures into the
village fortress, his appearance makes no more
A PASTORAL LEGEND. 83
difference than a stone would, if thrown into a
garden. The starHng, or zerziir, as the Arabs call
it, one of the few birds of the desert, gives a cry of
alarm, the branches shake, and a few ripe fruits
fall to the ground ; that is all ; the garden is still
exactly the same garden as it was before.
Even so the kasr is still the same kasr.
It does not matter in the least which of the five
kusur I take you to. It will be built on a little
eminence, not lofty enough to be called a hill,
and of very limited area, for the village will
completely cover the summit. Shall we go to
Tadjemut, so proudly situated, so proud of its
women ? — or shall it be to Kasr-el-Hiran, just as
proud and self-satisfied. We will choose the latter
for the sake of its picturesque name, which means
the kasr of the little camels.
I will begin by relating a legend about it as
simple as all pastoral legends always are. Once
upon a time, before the civil wars, which would be
still going on if the French conquest had not put
an end to them, a certain rich man owned many
flocks, and his camels grazed upon the meagre
patches of the grass called drinn, already referred
to, on the far-stretching plain. The female camels,
who were great with young and were soon to give
birth to many little ones, were resting beneath the
clear light of the beautiful stars. Then as he lay
in his tent, their wealthy owner thought to himself:
6*
84 THE WOMEN OF THE KUSCR.
" How would it be if, with the aid of Allah, we were
to make an enclosure on the little hill to protect the
young camels ? " For you good folks at home must
know that young camels, called Jiiran till they are
six months old and ni khalil till they are two years,
are delicate fragile creatures, as fragile as the young
turkeys of European farms, and the slightest
hardship or the least exposure to bad weather
is enouQ'h to kill them.
So a shelter was made to protect the little camels,
hideous little beasts that they were, but for all that
the hope of their rich owner. Then, when they no
longer needed it, the enclosure was enlarged and
men took up their abode in it, crowding out all the
camels, bio- or little, for whom there was no louQ-er
POPULATION OF KASR-EL-HIRAN. 85
any room within the narrow space. They had and
still have to camp outside with the nomad portion of
the tribe, but the name of Kasr-el-Hiran applies
equally to the outlying tents as to the town itself
I have been at some pains to secure exact in-
formation, and I have ascertained that there are 204
families, making up altogether 964 inhabitants, in this
village of Kasr-el-Hiran. Small as the population
is, the people are crowded together in a painful way,
and, strange to relate, all the sub-divisions of the
tribes are carefully kept up. There are no less than
four, each under its own sheik, who is in his turn
under the orders of the Caid. The four sub-tribes
are" the Nuirat under Sheik M'Barek-ben Khelifa,
the M'taba under Sheik El-Hadj-Kuider-ben-
Nebeg, the Aulad-Khelifa under Sheik El-Haj-
Khelifa, and lastly, the Nomads who are not able to
stop long in any one place, but who hang on, so to
speak, to the kasr where their father and their
brothers live. They disappear and re-appear
spasmodically, generally remaining at Kasr-el-Hiran
for a couple of months every autumn under the
leadership of a fourth Sheik, Belgacem ben Null
by name. All this for 204 families.
The nomads own some thirty tents, which
represent thirty families, and inside the kasr there
are a few giirbis or small tents set apart for them,
in which they store their grain. Except for the two
months when, as I have said, they camp near the
86 TI/£ U'OMEX OF THE KUSUR.
town, thev wander ceaselessly in the desert, letting
their camels graze on the driini and alfa to be
found here and there.
It is the same everywhere throughout the Sahara,
whether amongst the Mozabites, the Ghuara, or
other sedentary tribes, who are, so to speak, en
rapport with every kasr or fraction of a kasr. Bound
together by their common interests, though of alien
caste and race, the people of the towns and the
nomads cannot do without each other. The
wanderers need a shelter sometimes, those who
stop at home need messengers, and carriers for
their merchandise. Hence arise entanglements,
jealousies, quarrels, feuds, razzias, and reconcilia-
tions after mutual aggressions. If only one has the
patience to wait and watch, there is, in fact, no place
in the world more full of interest and romance than
the Sahara.
When the nomads have taken their departure
after their annual visit, the three remaining tribes
of Kasr-el-Hiran, the Nuirat, M'taba, and Aulad-
Khelifa settle down to their ordinary life, and things
go on as they did before.
Five times a day the muezzin summons the
men of the town to worship Allah and his prophet
on the low terrace of the primitive mosque, and
between whiles there are caonah to be drunk and
one's private affairs to look after.
Some of the men are merchants, and ply their
ARTIFICERS OF KASR-EL-HIRAN. 87
trade in low dark shops, in which, except in those
of the Jews, there seems to be absolutely nothing
to sell. For all that, however, a great deal of
business is done in these gloomy-looking holes, for
stuffs, weapons, beads, vegetables and grain from
Northern Algeria are bartered for the sheep and
camels of the Larbaa and the carpets woven by the
women of the kusur. In the Shaanba kusur, how-
ever, at El Golea for instance, wares from the Tell
are exchanged for ostrich feathers and other
natural products from places as far south as
Guarra and Timbuktu.
Then there are skilled artificers in Kasr-el-Hiran,
men who embroider saddles, make jewels, and do
all kinds of needlework, for in these parts the men
sew and the women weave. Most of them, how-
ever, are gardeners, who till very small gardens ;
but the crops they raise are enough, so little does
the Arab need, to feed many inhabitants. Under
these circumstances, the immense importance of the
oasis will be readily understood ; the oasis where
the wells, of which there are about two hundred
belonging to the village of Kasr-el-Hiran, enable a
little scanty vegetation to grow, and a few palms
to flourish. The number of wells varies according
to the size of the oasis, and in many places there
are more than there are at Kasr-el-Hiran. No
wells : no dates, no vegetables ; farewell to the
slim tapering carrots ; farewell to the hard beans
88 THE WOMEN OF THE KUSCR.
and the onions which give a relish to the kouskozts
stew. For the Wady-M'zi, that river of sand,
only yields a few drops of brackish water once
every five years at the most.
How shall I describe the well in the oasis ?
Its mechanism consists merely of a double pulley
worked by a double rope, which brings up a
bucket peculiar to the country, made of goat-
skin, which holds nearly forty quarts. This
bucket ends in a long flexible tube, also of
goat skin. To set the apparatus going, all
available forces are pressed into the service,
men, mules and camels being harnessed to the
upper rope. These drag up the forty quarts of
A WELL IN THE OASIS.
AN INGENIOUS APPARATUS. 91
liquid, no light weight of course, but when the
bucket is about to come out of the water, the
lower cord is very gently manipulated in such a
manner as to make the flexible cylinder at the
bottom of the bucket bend upwards till its end is
on a level with the brim of the latter. Then,
when the whole apparatus gets to the top of the
well, the tube is turned over the lower pulley,
and the precious stream of water is emptied into
the reservoir, whence it is carried to the trenches or
segtiias, and thence to the patches of garden, which
are watered by flooding them.
These details may appear trivial, but my readers
must pardon me for giving them, and remember
what they imply, the possibility of living in our
humble little kasr !
The women of the kasr only go into the gardens
now and then, just for a little change, or to gather a
few baskets of fruit. Of course, I am only alluding
to the lower classes, for the wife of the well-to-do
has other duties. She must never do anything in
the least like the out-door work performed by the
men ; indeed, she must never on any account go
out of her house.
For all that, however, out she does go, especially
in a crowded place, such as Kasr-el-Hiran. The
least thing is enough as an excuse for her absence ;
she must go and see the neighbour who has just
given birth to a boy ; she must visit her mother,
92 TBI: /rCJ/^.V OF THE KUSUR.
her aunt or her cousin ; or it is her pious duty to go
and pay her respects at the heaps of stones beneath
which sleep her departed parents. In principle, a
male member of the family ought to chaperone her
in all these little outings, but, as a matter of fact, he
is generally represented by an old woman, a very
complaisant old woman too, as a rule, for amongst
the Arabs the Rubicon is easily crossed.
Observe, by the way, that it is the women them-
selves who stickle for this apparent reserve, this
rule of never going out, except when closely veiled
and properly escorted. To them it represents
good form, and they would feel it quite beneath
their dignity to dispense with restrictions. When
some husband imbued with French ideas, as they
call it, tries to modify these tiresome customs in
the very slightest degree, he is always dreadfully
snubbed, accused of being a wretch, a coward, all
manner of horrible things ; his wife declares he no
longer respects her, he is treating her as if she were
a bad woman, or a nomad, or of low caste. And
the less the unlucky husband cares about her being
always veiled and sequestered, the more she insists
upon sticking to every detail of etiquette, for to her
these things represent being what the Europeans
call a woman of the world, a term capable in the
desert, as in France or England, of bearing many
different interpretations.
It must, however, be remembered that these well-
ORIGIN OF THE VEIL. 93
to-do and privileged women — and how few after all
are the luxuries and privileges they enjoy ? — are
quite in the minority, and there remain side by
side with them the far more numerous wives and
daughters of the poorer classes, who neglect the
precautions taken by their wealthier sisters. At
least they dispense with an escort, the veil is
de rigueur everywhere. At the mere suggestion of
their leaving it off, they will exclaim : " Do you take
us for savage Shaanbiyett * } Did not Allah say
to the Prophet, ' Tell the wives of the faithful to
let their veils fall to their feet ' " ? In thus implying
that Mohammed was the first to prescribe the use of
the veil, the women of the kusur betray their igno-
rance, for the custom is far older than that. Hagar,
the mother of Ishmael, went about with her face
uncovered because she was a slave, but Sarah, the
wife, hid herself when the heavenly messengers
came, and it was with her face covered that she
left her tent to listen to the word of the Lord.
The ruse practised by Tamar on her father-in-law
could never have succeeded, but for the veil in
which she wrapped herself, when she "sat in an open
* This is the plural of Shaanbiya as the women of the Shaanba tribe
are called. The women of the sedentary tribes know next to nothing
of the manners and customs of the Nomads, for they never go to their
tents, and they mix them all up together in their minds. Now and
then some old or poverty-stricken women from the dawars come into
the towns, and they are supposed to be typical specimens of their
Nomad sisters.
94 THE WOMEN OF THE KUSUR. '
place by the way to Timnath." Judah could not
recognise her, could not even guess who she was,
for women do not wear veils in the presence of the
men of their own family. She made herself a
stranger to him by putting on the veil, and it was
to the mystery in which she was shrouded that he
succumbed.
Of course, the feminine society of the kasr is
very limited, very exclusive, very prejudiced ; for
all its members belong to the same tribe, and are
actuated by the same, or very similar, motives.
There is, in fact, what business men would call a
certain solidarity or community of interests about
the women. They all have much the same virtues
and much the same faults. Just as at El-Aghuat,
there are clandestine outings, clandestine meetings,
and the wives are as frivolous and as fond of
wasting money as elsewhere. The husbands must
put up with it all as best they can.
" Oh, Bakta ! " says one, " I forbid thee to go to
the Jew ; I forbid thee to buy a new maliffa before
the next fete day."
But the only result is, that Bakta goes to the
Jew or buys her maliffa a little sooner than she
would have done, for forbidden fruits are sweet.
She not only buys the maliffa, but she also indulges
in some of the little mirrors the Arab women are
fond of wearing at the waist, and a purse, and
perhaps some ougayas for her daughter. In fact,
THE DESERT STORES. 95
she spends all the money she has, for the Jew
gives nothing without actually receiving money
down, no more do the Arab or the Mozabite
merchants, alas !
Bakta will never learn reason till she gets her
wrinkles, and then ■ she will never acquire a
taste for economy till she is too old to climb into
the bassur, or palanquin, in which beautiful women
travel or are taken to weddings. Then, and not
till then, she will begin to work hard and to know
what real fatigue means.
Until then, she takes her work in very small
doses only : a little weaving, a little cooking and
so on. The negresses do her washing for her,
either as her resident servants or as poor women
who go out by the day, and are paid for their
labour with a measure of corn. Sometimes Bakta
puts on a little spurt to finish a carpet she wishes
to barter with the nomads for something else, and
with the merchandize she Q-ets in exchang-e, such
as grain or dates, she will open a new credit with
the Jew. Oh, what beautiful silk handkerchiefs,
what lovely cotton stuffs, he has ! Do you suppose
that the Shulamite women were proof against
similar temptations when a caravan arrived from
El-Hedjaz ? Do you imagine that the Sanaa shops,
which existed long before the time of the Prophet,
differed so very much from these Desert Stores
where such a heterogeneous collection of wares
96 THE WOMEN OF THE KUSUR.
has accumulated ? Do you suppose that the old
Assyrian merchant who boasted of yore of his
beautiful saffron-coloured scarves was any less
astute than his modern prototype of the Sahara,
who knows so well how to manage simple-hearted
Bakta ? No, indeed ; and Bakta's heart swells
with childish joy, w4th almost fierce elation, when
she looks at her purchases, just as did that of
Rebekah, the sister of Laban, when she saw the
presents bought for her by the servant of Abraham,
who had come to win her as a wife for his master's
son Isaac.
It is ever the same in every age and clime. The
heart of the young girl thrills at the sight of finery.
In this one point, and this one point only, I note
an affinity between a woman of the Sahara and a
Parisian ; both turn pale or blush with emotion
as they tenderly handle the chiffon they are about
to choose, and a sort of nervous tremor passes
through them as they finally take up their precious
purchases.
I used the w^ord solidarity just now, in speaking
of the women of the Sahara. Well, there is a very
real and often touching solidarity, or reciprocity
of charity. I mean in the mutual help given and
the little services rendered to each other. Men,
too, are always ready to come to the help, on the
very first appeal, of those who want to build a new
house or repair their old one. Everyone is eager
?^^
H /wiSii-
THE PALANQUIN OF THE SAHAKA.
MUTUAL HELP LN THE SAHARA. 99
to do what he can. Said will get the wood ready
for the terrace, Messaud will bring the bricks,
Bachir the soil for making the mortar. All work
hard, all become quite excited over the matter ;
and in next to no time the thing is done, without
costing the owner of the dwelling anything but
an " Allah ikettar kherek'' — may God reward you !
Payment is made when those who have aided now
in their turn require a similar service.
Amongst the women this mutual help takes
a very pleasing and satisfactory form. I will try
and give an example of what I mean.
Bakta, with whom we have just made friends,
Bakta, the fourth wife of Said-ben- Nebeg, is very
anxious to finish a burnous, either to barter as
already described, or because her husband has
told her to make it for him, the winter being at
hand. Bakta has got the warp ready for making
this burnous, but not the woof or weft, which is
never prepared till the last minute, for, being soft
and fluffy, it spoils if it is kept too long. It is
amongst her friends and the daughters of her
friends that she will get this necessary work done.
Surely no one will refuse to help Bakta, who is
always ready to lend a hand herself
Havinpf made sure that the stock of wool washed
in the summer is sufficient, Bakta arrays herself
in her visiting clothes, putting on all the finery she
possesses. A chemisette with tulle sleeves, just like
7*
loo THE WOMEN OF THE KUSUR.
the one the Caid's wife wears, a green silk maliffa —
but isn't it a little frayed, perhaps this blue one will
be better ? No, no, we will keep that for the great
fete. Now Bakta, who has been stooping over her
toilette, draws herself up, she arranges her maliffa, a
long, straight piece of woven material, and it falls in
soft drapery, converted by a touch here and a touch
there into a complete dress, gathered in at the waist
by a sash and fastened above the arms. Then out
comes the dye, two dabs on the cheeks, some saffron
on the lips, some kohl on the eye-brows, a little oil
on the hair, and some scent sprinkled over all.
Then, the nails havino- been reddened with henna
the day before, Bakta twists the violet and yellow
silk scarf about her head, which keeps the ougaya
or veil in position ; the ougaya, generally white, but
sometimes coloured, being worn in the picturesque
style of the queens and noble ladies of the middle
ages, the silk scarf or a turban called the
vm/iarum, taking the place of the crown, and the
ougaya falling down the back below the waist. So
far so good. Now Bakta dons her ornaments, her
necklaces, her heavy ear-rings, three in each ear, and
her many rings. She feels in her bosom to make
sure that her silver reliquary containing a Si^irah
from the holy Koran is safe in its usual place. Has
she got everything now ? Yes, everything. She
pulled out any grey hairs that may have appeared
this mornino", and she washed herself — she doesn't
BAKTA GOES OUT CALLING. 103
remember when exactly. What could the most
exacting critic desire more ?
"Ahmed!" she cries, " Ahmed-ben -Nebeg !
Come here ! "
Ahmed is her young brother-in-law, whom she
now summons to escort her from door to door, and
who, during her visits, will wait for her patiently out-
side, for he must not enter the houses of women who
are no relation to him. The two sally forth together,
Bakta hermetically sealed up, so to speak, in her veil,
which is thrown over her complete get-up, for you
must know that the ougaya already described is
no use as a protection ; the real veil necessary to
decorum is a large piece of stuff, which the wearer
holds against the breast with one hand, and which
leaves only one eye visible.
Ahmed, the little escort, is in his oldest clothes
and carelessly carries an ancient matchlock. The
companions pause at the door of Mabruka, the wife
of Ben-Salem. Tap ! Tap ! Tap ! Nobody comes.
Ahmed squats down in the sun or the shade as the
humour takes him, and waits whilst Bakta goes on
knocking. '^ Hell-el-Bab I open the door," she cries,
and at last the door does open, and she disappears
in the dark passage revealed for a moment. Ahmed
goes to sleep or amuses himself by thinking of the
games of chance he means to have presently with
the nomads.
I need not tell you, of course, that Bakta is
I04 THE WOMEN OF THE KUSUR.
received with the most Hvely expressions of affection.
" Our house is thine ! etc." I will spare you the rest.
If the modern caouah is not offered to her some-
thing else is, for hospitality necessitates it. All
this tender flattery, this eagerness to offer oneself
and all that one owns to one's friend, is ingrain in
the soul of the race to which these women belong.
" Drink ! Drink, oh my guest ! " they cry, " eat
until thou art satisfied." And even if interested
motives come in sometimes, they really do not
prevent the expressions of affection being sincere
for the moment at least, even when the guests are
Rumis. Those who do not understand this will
never understand other peculiarities of these people,
who hate all Europeans.
The news having been exchanged, the offered
food consumed and the various conventional re-
marks made, Bakta makes up her mind to reveal
the motive of her visit. She invites the young
ladies of the household and the children to boot to
come to her on such and such a day, if it please
Allah, to help her with the g^iiam or woof of a
burnous, this woof as already stated being light,
fleecy and easily spoiled.
" Oh yes, yes ; with all my heart ! " each one
replies.
Bakta in her turn answers :
" Thank you, may Allah increase thy knowledge
of all o-ood things ! "
O O
A SPINNING BEE IN l^IIE DESERT. 105
Then, after expressing many other hopes she takes
her departure and wakes up Ahmed-ben-Nebeg,
who goes to sleep again a few steps further on.
In the next house fresh caresses are exchanged,
fresh dates consumed, fresh mint tea drunk out
of little cups made of plaited alfa. In fact the whole
scene, including the invitation to help with the
guiam of the burnous, is repeated in every house.
"With pleasure, with all my heart!" everyone
replies.
And all these warm-hearted women, young and
old, are punctual at the rendezvous, apologizing for
not being en grande toilette. They have all come
in their old clothes to help make the guiam of
the burnous.
The meeting is really a regular fete, a working
fete if you will, but a very happy one, at which
a lot of gay chattering is done. Plenty of mint
tea keeps up the courage of the workers, for the
task they have to perform is really a very tiring
one. Three things are needed by each of the
woof makers : a kind of flat dish or plate of wood
or earthenware, a long spindle, and a I am
almost afraid to mention the third thing, lest I
should shock my European readers, who will, per-
haps, faint when they hear what it is. Well, I
will try to explain. The spinner, squatting on the
ground, fastens the wool she has to draw out on
to the end of her spindle, places the spindle upright
io6 THE WOMEN OF THE KUSUR.
on its other end in the wooden plate, and this plate
she brings close to the third thing I am so shy
of mentioninor, which — for the murder must out —
is her own leg, her leg bared from hip to knee.
Needless to add that her dress is pulled well up
above her hip. Then the spindles, kept in place
against the bare leg of the worker, are flung
by her skilful hand, and go rapidly round and
round, their gyratory motion aided by the
glazed surface of the plate, which serves as a kind
of trough, whilst the skin of the spinner's leg,
held taut, so to speak, acts as a groove. Round
and round they go, kept carefully balanced upon
the side of the hip, and down again on the inner
side of the knee. Nobody thinks any harm. The
mischievous and fickle god of love has nothing
to do with real work such as this, and, of course,
only the women of the family are allowed to be
present at these quaint spinning bees of the
Sahara.
All the time the workers laugh and talk and tell
each other stories. They are all thoroughly happy
together ; it is a most charming, most innocent, and
most useful meeting, which sometimes lasts for as
long as three consecutive days.
Truly, there is something very naive and touch-
ing about the whole arrangement, it is all so per-
fectly innocent and natural. Kindness, unselfish-
ness, good-fellowship, are all involved in it ; virtues
AN OLD WORLD TOWN. 107
which the extravagance and display of the modern
woman of fashion in Europe have done much to
destroy.
For observe : they all help Bakta, who is far
from being poor, but they would be just as ready to
help the most wretched woman of the kasr. They
will go and stretch the threads of the web on her
carpet frame for her, a piece of work requiring the
aid of no less than ten skilful hands ; they will
grind her corn for her, take care of her when she
is ill, and feed her when she is hungry. All this
should make amends for the bare legs, should it
not ? And then, you know, the kasr really belongs
to a time so very remote, although the actual date
of the Kasr-el-Hiran is quite modern, for it was
founded in the sixteenth century of our era, and
only became the fortress it now is as recently as
1 80 1, the Umm-el-KJwbeir, or year which was the
mother of mallows, and was so fertile, so rich in
blessings. This does not, however, destroy the
impression of antiquity produced by this old-world
town, for the people who dwell in it date their
origin from thousands of years back. It is, indeed,
the immense antiquity of its inhabitants, with their
intense love for the traditions of a past so very
remote, which makes the little settlement appear so
ancient. Modern it may be so far as the materials
it is built of go, but its soul, its inner ego, is the
outcome of centuries upon centuries.
io8 THE WOMEN OF THE KUSUR.
It has been in the brief time since 1801, that
all the wars, all the struggles, all the assaults
through which Kasr-el-Hiran has passed, have
taken place.
Do not be afraid. I will not inflict them all
upon you. You would be crushed beneath the
weight of all the exciting annals, telling how the
M'talia slew the Rahman, or betrayed the Aulad-
Zanun, or revenged themselves on the M'khalif.
All these conflicts seem to have culminated in the
assault on Kasr-el-Hiran, when Abd-el-Kader de-
manded the giving up of his treacherous lieutenant,
el-Haj-el-Arbi, who had taken refuge within its
walls, and was hidden by its inhabitants. Boiling
oil, melted butter, and tar were poured upon the
heads of the besiegers, and saucepans full ot cinders
were flung down with a treniendous noise from
the ramparts upon the dromedaries, who were
driving the enemies of their masters before them.
Pots were smashed, cinders and ashes flew about ;
oh, it was a terrible scene !
This siege, worthy of description by an epic poet,
had its heroine, a Joan of Arc with Oriental tresses,
who wore many veils, many necklaces, and whose
garments smelt of cloves and musk. This was a
certain damsel named Aisha bint Mihud, called the
most beautiful on account of her many charms,
who, seeing the enemy planting his standard at
the very base of the defences of the town, rushed
A SAHARIAN JOAN OF ARC. icc;
down into the melee, and, seizing the banner of the
foe, she turned to the warriors of the town, crying :
" Cowards that ye are, ye men of Kasr-el-Hiran.
Must a woman show you your duty, and set you
an example of courage ? "
The story goes that she promised to be the bride
of the victor, and that after this appeal the men of
Kasr-el-Hiran fought like lions, the followers of Abd-
el-Kader were put to flight, but I have not been able
to find out which of the victorious warriors received
the reward. No one who hears this legend can
justly accuse the men of the Sahara of looking
upon woman as a mere beast of burden, a mere
slave to their passions. No. I assert and shall
always be ready to assert that the women of the
Sahara, the women of the kusCir, however childish
and limited their ideas may be, are not to be pitied.
They are suited to their environment, to the position
to which they are born. I consider them, indeed,
far less to be pitied than the work or peasant woman
of Europe, less to be pitied than the female clerks at
home, who receive some forty or fifty pounds a year
as wages and have to keep themselves out of that
mere pittance. The household work the Saharian
women have to do is very light, and they have
plenty of the leisure they enjoy so much. Above
all, they have what our European women certainly
lack, and what at first sight no one would expect of
the simple children of the Desert ; a true apprecia-
no THE WOMEN OF THE KUSUR.
tion, an intense love for the beauty of the brilliant
sunshine, the soothing shade, the sublime harmony
of their native land. This feeling for beauty makes
up to them for the intellectual tastes with which,
nowadays, we try to imbue the women of Europe.
It gives them a taste of the very highest joy of
which a human creature is capable.
In a word, the women of the Sahara know how
to dream, and more than that, they know of what
they dream, every one of them, whether she be
virtuous or not, rich or poor ; and when they gaze
up into the dark blue sky at night and see the
silvery stars shining so clearly and so brightly, just
as they did in the days of the wise men of the East,
these women, who are their descendants and their
true daughters, have a foretaste of eternity in spite
of the Koran — in spite of everything.
THE DWELLERS IN THE WADY M'ZAB. xii
CHAPTER VII.
THE WADY M'ZAB AND THE SEVEN HOLY CITIES.
I PiAVE already said that the kusur are inhabited
by a mixed race, in which the Arab element pre-
dominates over the Berber, but there are many
purely Berber groups, some sedentary, others
nomad, in the Sahara. Those who travel in
caravans, whether merely to see the country, to
trade, or to fight, must of necessity pass through
one of these Berber settlements, that known as
the Wady M'zab, where live the Beni-M'zab or
Mozabites, who dwell, in the strictest, most carefully
guarded seclusion, at the very point of junction of
those untraced tracks across the desert, the great
caravan routes between In-Saleh and Gabes, the
Tell and Timbuktu, where the only sign-posts are
the bleached bones of camels.
It is not, however, be it remembered, the Beni-
M'zab who have elected to settle on these routes
of leisurely travel, it is the routes which have, so to
speak, chosen to converge on their Wady.
Oh, those quaint Beni-M'zab ! how utterly
112 THE SEVEN HOLY CITIES.
remote, lost, and out of the way their home
appeared to me at first, yet now I look upon it as
quite central. It is in fact like one of the inhabited
islands dotted about in the vast expanses of the
great Oceans. Only an island is generally above
the level of the water, whereas the Wady M'zab is
a hole below the level of the sand, a sudden rift
in the plateau, an oval-shaped fissure some three
hundred feet deep at its lowest point.
Curious, little-known, little-appreciated country,
the so-called occupation of which by the French
took place as recently as 1802, but which so far
has attracted no emigrants, not so much as a
A LAND OF STRONG CONTRASTS. 113
few humble miners. It has remained the Wady
M'zab, with its queer, mysterious religion, and
in our eyes wild and dissolute yet childish
people, subject to the French, but as yet not
assimilated in the very slightest degree. In this
remote Wady there are wretched hovels and full
purses, arid soil in which nothing will grow, and
fertile gardens, loving-kindness and cruelty ; in a
word, it is a land of strong contrasts, the people of
which we quite fail to understand. I really believe
that if we went to the planet Mars, the inhabitants
would seem less strange to us than do these good
Mozabites.
It takes five Arabs, says a Saharian proverb, to
get the better of one Algerian Jew, and five Jews to
get the better of one Mozabite. Sometimes indeed
it is quite impossible to be even with a Mozabite.
In fact the Mozabite gets his subtle trading
instinct from a very ancient source, it is in his very
blood ; for Berber as he is, he traces his descent
from the Phoenicians. Or, to speak more clearly,
he is distinguished from the rest of the Berber
tribes by an unmistakeable Tyrrhenian strain. The
patient observer will not fail to find confirmation of
this assertion in the habits, superstitions, and other
peculiarities we shall notice in this chapter, as well
as in the peculiar form of the monuments of the
Wady M'zab.
I will spare you the long course of reasoning
114 ^'-^^ SEVEN HOLY CITIES.
on which I found my ethnological theory. You
must know, however, that it is by no means arbi-
trary. The Phoenician Carthage ruled for eight
centuries over the seaboard of what is now Kabyle,
and even after her destruction her influence was
felt in the colonies. It is indeed an historical fact
that the Mozabites were driven back from the coast
into the desert on the South fifty years after the
celebrated conquest of Alexandria by Omar.
Moreover, the minarets of the Mozabite mosques,
unique as they are now, are exactly like some I
have seen represented in the precious papyri from
Egypt and Tyre now in the collection at Vienna
belonging to the Archduke Rainer.
We grant then that the INIozabites are of
Phoenician origin, with a dash of Numidian blood,
and of that of yet more ancient native races.
Descendants of the wealthy merchants who traded
as far west as England, they, too, at the present
day are most eager traders, carrying on their busi-
ness throughout Algeria and in the Tell. They
are to be met with in all the towns, in the dark
recesses of the shops, noticeable for their stout
figures, their crafty expression and their many-
coloured ganduras. Every two years they return
to the Wady M'zab to cheer the widowhood of
their deserted wives, as is prescribed in the com-
mentaries on the Koran, at least in those of the
'Abadiyeh sect, to which they belong.
RELIGION OF THE MOZABITES.
115
For now-a-days they are Mussulmans, but
dissenters of the fifth sect, there being four others
recognized at Mecca and by the Sultan. They
are alike schismatics and Puritans ; they fast to
excess, and reject the mystic doctrines of the
marabouts, who are venerated and subsidized by
the rest of the faithful. They also make many
prayers, at least when their devotions do not
interfere with trade.
To them an orthodox Arab is a dog, whilst they
themselves are dogs to the orthodox Arab. This,
of course, does not ease the wheels of their relations
with their nomad neighbours. Indeed it was this
which brought upon them, soon after their con-
version to Islamism, the misfortunes resulting
8*
ii6 THE SEVEN HOLY CITIES.
in the foundation of the remote settlement in that
lonely rift of the desert converted by the hand
of man into the present deep depression known
as the Wady M'zab.
This was how the whole thing came about !
To begin with, a rival sect, that of the Wahabi-
Sufis, had driven the Mozabites from the coasts
of the Mediterranean to the distant country in
which rises the town of Wargla, where, for good
or for evil as the case may be, they founded two
colonies known as Khrima and Cedrata. Forty
years after the foundation of the latter town their
persecutors drove them out of it, because, dogs
that they were, they would not abjure their heresies.
They had just finished building a fine monument,
which was at once destroyed by the fierce iconoclast
Wahabis.
A year or two ago the ruins of Cedrata, the site
of which is indicated in old Mozabite chronicles,
were dug out of the deep sand which had com-
pletely buried them. They indicate a more
advanced, in fact more Phoenician, civilization
than do the modern Mozabite buildings. In the
chief houses several fine rooms surrounded a central
atrium, and the slaves' quarters were situated
behind the kitchen. In contradistinction to the
Arab custom — and this proves the difference of
origin of the two races — none of the mouldings
were in plaster, but a rather coarse-grained
AN ULTRA SACRED TOWN. -117
cement was used for decorative purposes and for
the inscriptions on the walls.
Truly our ex-merchants of Carthage found them-
selves on the horns of a dilemma. Not knowing
what to do to escape their persecutors, they took
refugee in the most arid, the most desolate and
deserted, place they could find in the Sahara.
There was already a deep rift, a sudden gap in
the lofty sterile plateau, choked up it is true with
sand, sand, and yet more sand, but it was capable
of development, and the Mozabites decided to
take refuge in it. They made their mercenaries —
for, fresh from Carthage, of course they too had
their mercenaries — dig wells and plant palms, and
had ere long established themselves on the little
acclivities which broke the general desolation.
These they fortified, and in course of time their
settlements grew into towns.
It will be readily understood that, as they had
been persecuted for their belief, which they dignified
by the name of religion, the Mozabites soon
arrogated to themselves the title of saints. Their
cities became holy cities, and one of them, Ben-
Izguen, was declared to be the most holy of all.
To this day no one enters it on horseback, and
to smoke in it would be to commit sacrilesfe.
No card-playing, no singing, no drinking is
allowed in it. All profane pleasures are forbidden,
Alas ! that I must add, evil tongues declare that,
ii8 THE SEVEN HOLY CITIES.
as elsewhere, the greater the saint the greater
the sinner, and the people in the neighbourhood
of Ben-Izguen liken it to Sodom and Gomorrah.
Well, here we are at last, if by a bad road, safely
arrived at Wady M'zab, as it was in the 19th
century of our era ! Let us climb up on to the
rugged height which dominates the valley.
On every side we find death, nothing but death !
Black, melancholy-looking stones strew the arid
soil. We have been marching for miles and miles,
for days and days, through monotonous districts, all
exactly alike, and have come quite suddenly, when
we least expected it, upon the Wady M'zab lying
stretched at our feet, with its holy cities looking,
in spite of all the sand it contains, like a veritable
Eden in the Desert. There are clumps of palms
and there are towns, which, from a distance at
least, are not unlike those of Europe. There
are wells, gardens, vegetation, even flowers !
Forgetting the sins of its people, we feel as if
we were approaching Paradise. And, truth to
tell, the Mozabites — industrious, persevering and
patient, as they are, with many virtues to set
against their defects — really do deserve our
gratitude and indulgence, if only for the delightful
surprise their valley is to the weary traveller.
Five of the holy cities in this Wady are within
sight of each other, namely : Ghardaya, the
capital, Melika, Ben-Izguen, Bou-Noura, and
HOUSES AND MOSQUES.
119
El-Ateuf. The other two, Berryan and Guerra,
are on the upper plateau. The inhabitants of
the whole valley number some 32,000 altogether.
Seen from the brow of the plateau, the holy
cities are all exactly alike, so much so, that one
might easily be taken for the other ; for all
have yellow or grey houses, with arcades and
niches, looking from a distance like bee-hives.
The minarets of the mosques are all alike, so
are the little forts, so are the towers !
Each town is governed by a Caid and a sort
of council, called a jemba, which looks after
I20 THE SEVEN HOLY CITIES.
the affairs of the community as a whole, for the
Mozabite settlements form a confederation, still
maintained even since the French occupation ;
but this confederation cannot be called a fraternity,
for civil war has been of constant occurrence.
Civil war and trade ; these are the two chief
occupations of tlje Wady M'zab, and just now the
latter is entirely in the ascendant.
Honour to whom honour is due! We will
consider trade to begin with, premising that it
is honestly carried on. Everywhere we see the
Mozabite behind his counter, his horn spectacles
upon his nose, scribbling down columns of notes
and figures in his account-book, writing them
from left to right, as is the Oriental fashion.
Trade may be divided into three principal
sorts, namely, the caravan trade, of which one
of the chief emporiums is the Wady-M'zab ; the
trade carried on in shops in all the Algerian and
Tunisian towns to which the Mozabites emigrate ;
and the more modest retail home trade.
It must not be forgotten that the Sahara — no
single district of which produces all the necessary
articles of consumption — lives by barter, and this
barter is effected by the agency of the Mozabite.
whose capital permits him to indulge in speculation.
The Wady-M'zab is, therefore, one of the great
markets of the Sahara. The most important
transactions take place to a certain extent in
TRADE Ii\ l-HE WADY-M'ZAB. 121
private, but in the public streets a good deal of
business of a less remunerative kind is done.
The chief articles brought to the Wady-M'zab
and sold in the shops are wool, grain, fruit, woven
materials, embroideries, haberdashery, weapons and
harness. Pawnbroking and lending money on
usury are also practised, and the M'zab merchants
do not disdain petty transactions in which only
a few sous are risked.
What may be called the trade carried on in the
street, or partly in the street, is the most picturesque,
but not nearly so lucrative as the more private
business done. I mean, for instance, the sale of
meat and of wood. The latter is a most valuable
commodity, brought from a long distance off, for
palm wood is useless as fuel. Each little stick
is weighed separately, sometimes as often as seven
times, and no end of discussion goes on before
a bargain is finally struck.
Most of the Mozabites are very religious and
do a lot of praying before, during, or after their
trading. They are very particular about their
genuflexions, of which they indulge in a great
number. If one of them is travelling in a public
vehicle, it must be stopped in the open country, for
him to get out and say his prayers at the right time
according to the prescribed rites of his sect.
Two of the Abadite mosques made an especially
profound impression upon me. I often fancy myself
122 THE SEVEN HOLY CITIES.
back in the town of Berryan, having just left the
presence of the Caid, a very typical personage,
who, in spite of myself, I could not help fancying
to have been a Carthaginian merchant of the
already troublous times of Hasdrubal and Hamilcar.
He was a very rich man, and what with his capital,
his obstinate will, his moral and physical strength,
his perseverance, his duplicity, his pride, and his
versatility, well worthy to belong to that great
Barca family. He only needed a wider sphere
than the Wady M'zab to do as great things as
the merchant princes from whom he was probably
descended, for he had all the necessary qualities
of a great merchant.
Now I naturally supposed that a temple in which
A DTLA FID A TED MOSQUE. 123
such important personages as my friend the Caid
of Berryan worshipped God five times a day,
praying Him to bless their enterprises, and to
further their interests in every way, would be
beautifully decorated, if not quite equal in splendour
to the sanctuaries of Tanith, or Baal-Haman,
and, behold ! here I was stumbling about in
a wretched, gloomy little court, with miserable
niches, dark corners, and tattered awnings. A
humble building truly, very old for this land,
where everything crumbles away, making me
doubt whether, after all, these Mozabites are
really of Carthaginian origin. But I was wrong,
as the sight of the mines of Cedrata has since
proved to me, not to speak of Punic architectural
details on the top of the Berryan Tower itself
What, I asked myself then, could be the cause
of the dilapidated state of this miserable little
mosque ? A moment's reflection sufficed to make
the whole thing clear to me. In olden times,
before the Exodus, first to the Wady Mya, and
later to the primitive Wady M'zab, then quite
uncultivated, the climate and the materials for
building were such that no better structures could
be produced. A habit of economy had been
induced, and this habit tradition had confirmed.
Evil tongues might, perhaps, say that love of
money was really at the root of the matter, but
this, I think, would be unfair. As I looked at
124
THE SEVEN HOLY CITIES.
the faithful jostling each other in the narrow
passages, they seemed to be muttering some such
explanation as this : "By the great sheikh, Jacob,
Allah, the all-powerful, enjoys such splendour in
the seven heavens, that He cannot distinguish the
mean from the sumptuous at such a distance as
He is above the earth down below. We have
shade in which to say our prayers ; that is all we
want. It is really better so, for we pray more
earnestly in a poor church, because the eyes of
the body find nothing in it to distract the eyes of
the soul, and because our hearts are not affected
by seeing money wasted ! '"
Later, the worshippers I saw in the mosque at
Ghardaya, the capital, gave me very similar im-
pressions. The crumbling grey walls, the gaping
A SEMI-HOSTILE SACRISTAN. 125
arches, the wretched Httle places in which the
vessels for ablutions were kept, were all of a most
inferior description ; yet from the top of the terraces
of the town, I could see in the foreground the
solid iron doors of the private houses, and further
away, the clean, well-built streets, opening on to
good ramparts and bastions.
The excellent Caid of Ghardaya, less Cartha-
ginian, but more cheerful, than his brother of
Berryan, pretended that he had sprained his foot,
so as to get out of having to do the honours of
.the mosque for us himself For here the presence
in the sacred building of Rumis is looked upon
as so great a profanation that he did not want to
seem to sanction it. As for persuading the said
Rumis to give up their sacrilegious visit, he had
no hope of that. " By the name of Allah," he
probably said to himself, "these victorious Rumis
are incorrigibly curious."
I can assert, however, that, Rumis though we
were, we were very reasonable. We did aot
contaminate by contact with our feet the praying-
mats on which the faithful were prostrated in silent
devotion. Our very presence, however, so evi-
dently annoyed and distressed the worshippers,
that we quickly withdrew to the summit of the
cracked tower of the mosque, guided up the pitch-
dark staircase by a semi-hostile sacristan with a
lantern.
126 THE SEVEN HOLY CITIES.
From this tower a view is obtained of nearly the
whole of the Wady M'zab. The symmetrical
pyramids of the holy cities rise up so near to
each other that, according to official documents,
they could all five be enclosed in a circular wall
measuring some three miles and a half. Every
here and there, between the green patches of
verdure of the oases and the russet-brown stretches
of sand, were what looked like raised and paved
platforms, gleaming white in the sunshine amidst
the rough stones with which the desert was strewn.
" What are they } " we asked of the sullen
sacristan.
" Cemeteries," was the reply. " There are several
for each town. Those raised white platforms you
see are for the use of mourners who can go and
weep in them for the departed, without any fear of
soiling their fine burnouses." Truth to tell, these
melancholy-looking platforms reminded me at this
distance of the Towers of Silence of certain parts
of India, only there were no dead bodies and no
vultures.
They are surrounded by tombs, which are mere
piles of unworked stones with no inscriptions, not
a sio-n to shew who rests beneath them. None
but Saints and perhaps a few rich men have a
rio-ht to the mausoleums which the sacristan
pointed out to us down below : quaint-looking
round or pointed cupolas made of sham stone rising
MOZABITE SCHOOLS. 129
up to Heaven in a manner which seems very
incongruous here, and recalls the religious customs
of Nineveh and Tyre.
On the graves of those who have not achieved
the dignity of sainthood, rags and broken pottery
are thrown as well as stones. This custom is a
relic of the worship of spirits to which I shall
refer again later, and the accumulated debris serves
also for identification of the tomb. Blind old
women indeed sometimes recognize the last resting
place of some loved one by feeling the pieces of
broken pottery strewn on it.
And we Riimis, aliens in a foreign town amongst
a people sullenly hostile to us, as we look down
from our minaret upon these tombs and platforms,
seem to see in the broken pottery strewing the
former, an emblem of the cup of life, drained and
emptied by those cut off by death. And as the
nasal droning of the Mozabite devotions is wafted
up to us our melancholy becomes tinged with a
kind of fatalist resignation.
But it is time we left this lofty position with its
depressing associations. Shall I talk to you
instead of the school connected with every mosque,
where the ^lozabite children are taught to recite
the Koran ? Well, these schools are supported
by a commercial tax on dates, a tribute paid in
kind. Teachers, scholars, muftis, or doctors of
the law, and iinans or priests, are all supported
9
I30 THE SEVEN HOLY CITIES.
entirely by the impost on these sweet fruits. When
there is any stock of them left at the end of the
year, they are sold for the maintenance of the
priests, or the proceeds are given away in alms.
Or shall I talk to you about the social class,
or rather the caste of the so-called tolbas or
theologists ? These are the very pillars of virtue,
the candidates for what I may call official sanctity,
who move about in the streets with measured steps,
and grave, modest demeanour, draped in fine white
linen ; never indulging in any colour. They must
lead, or appear to lead, pure and chaste lives, for,
alas ! amongst the Mozabites to be, and to appear
to be, are far more synonymous terms than they
once were ! As is well known, these tolbas are
the guardians of sacred tradition, the expounders
alike of the civil and the ecclesiastical law in all
Mussulman countries. In the Wady M'zab, they
diligently keep up the schism between their sect
and the rest of the Mahommedans, which schism
consists in denying amongst other things the
sacred books of the Arabs ; those three hadiiks,
or precepts of the Sunna, as Mahomet's oral
teaching is called, propagated after the death of
the Prophet by his disciples, his nephew Ali, and
his beloved young wife, Aisha, the daughter of Abu-
Bekr. They eagerly discuss one preliminary point
of the utmost importance : did this same Aisha,
pretty frivolous girl that she was, forget her duty
THE SANCHO FANZAS 01' wADY M'ZAB. 131
one day in company with the handsome Safrann ?
Deeply interesting problem, about which the tolbas
of Ben Izguen and those of Ghardaya were for
long at daggers drawn, the theological dispute on
the burning question being all the hotter because
their brethren of El-Ateuf and Melika could not
agree about it either.
To us Europeans, this reads like a caricature
of the truth. But there is really nothing exagge-
rated or surprising about it, for there is something
of the buffoon in every Mozabite, and with him
there is always a comic element, even in the most
serious subjects.
The Mozabites are all stout fellows, and mounted
on their donkeys, who have more spirit than they
have, they are very like Sancho Panza, only there
are no Don Quixotes in their country. They wear
canary-coloured slippers, and their dress is much
the same as that of the Arab, except for the striped
ganduras or abayas they sport when in neglige
costume.
From all that I have said about the absorption
of the Mozabite in business and in prayer, it might
be supposed that three-fourths of his time being
consumed in them he would not be able person-
ally to fulfil the precept of Voltaire's Candide :
" Cultivate your garden," and yet the beautiful
gardens of the oases prove that the land is certainly
132 THE SEVEN HOLY CITIES.
not allowed to lie fallow. Here is the explanation
of the mystery : without counting his workmen
and the cultivators of his distant farms, his kJiavmies
at Wargla, for instance, the Mozabite has two
sets of servants to help him with his home
agriculture. These servants are slaves, nominally
freed, and hired labourers, their employment being
a survival of the old Carthaginian system, destroyed
in principle by the French annexation of the
country, but still in vogue for all that.
The slaves are negroes brought from the Soudan
by caravans, and since their forced emancipation
in 1802, they have remained servants either with
or without wages. Their position in the family,
which was from the first a comfortable one enouo-h,
is practically unchanged. How much there is to
be said on that subject ! — but I shall recur to it
again later ; for the moment we will speak of the
hired servants or mercenaries only.
The word mercenary sounds strange in our
modern ears. It carries us back in imaoination
to Carthage, to the ancient Hipponi, a Punic city
even before the time of the Romans. We recall the
later arrival of the warriors of Islam, the first ex-
pulsions of heretics in the name of religious dogma ;
and in so doing we get something of an inkling
of the state of mind of the future Mozabites, the
cowardly merchants .driven into the Sahara,
bewildered in the vast trackless desert. " Alas ! how
A FEUDAL MILITIA. 133
are we to defend ourselves," they must have cried,
" how are we to fight ? " They were accustomed
to buy and sell weapons, not to use them.
Then, turning to account the money which I
believe they took with them in their exile, they
found a way out of their difficulty. Following
the traditions of the old capital of their native
country, they converted the pastoral people whose
tents were pitched near their own infant cities
into their mercenaries. That ancient Carthaginian
tradition is a stubborn one, dying very hard — in
fact, it is really not dead yet.
These pastoral tribes were soon organized into
a kind of feudal militia, the Mozabites of
Berryan pressing into their service the Aulad-
Yaya, the people of Ghardaya, the Beni-Merzug
with certain of the Shaanba tribes. The weapons
134 THE SEVEN HOLY CITIES.
and camels of the mercenaries became practi-
cally the property of the new Mozabite masters,
in whose pay their owners were, and it was the
duty of these mercenaries to go forth against the
enemies of their lords, to escort convoys and
caravans as far as the Soudan, etc. The re-
lations, practically those of master and serf are
transmitted from father and son, neither dreaming
of shirking his share of the bargain. I must
add, however, that some of the Shaanba are not
quite so faithful to their obligations, and will sell
themselves to the highest bidders, not scrupling
even to betray their masters sometimes.
Sometimes, too, there are internecine quarrels
between soff and soff^ as political parties are called
in the Sahara, when, perhaps, the men of Ghardaya
send their mercenaries to cut the throats of the
people of Melika or vice-versa, for there is no one
more pugnacious than the Mozabite when he is not
in the way of receiving any blows himself Nothing
but the vigorously enforced supremacy of the
French has been able to suppress these constant
civil broils, resulting in what can only be called
assassinations and massacres. In spite, however,
of the comparative tranquillity of the country under
the new rdgime, the mercenaries are still necessary.
Who but they will watch over the flocks ? Who will
protect the stores and caravans against the raids
of pillagers ? Who else, weapon on shoulder, will
A LOGICAL CONCLUSION. 135
escort the camels, laden with valuable merchandise ?
All these questions, moreover, can be asked the
other way round. Who but the Mozabite will give
employment to the mercenary ? Who else will
repair his house ? Who will feed him, his wife, and
his children, in bad years ? Who will replace
the few beasts of burden owned by the mercenary
when they succumb to sudden attacks of dis-
temper ?
All this seems logical enough, but I do not
suppose that when that worthy old fellow Hamilcar
Barca bought and sold, speculated and organized
his mercenaries, or when he accumulated stores
to re-victual his irregular troops, he foresaw these
Carthaginian descendants of his who dwell in the
desert of Sahara.
MANY OBSTACLES TO OVERCOME. 137
CHAPTER VIII.
AMONG THE MOZABITE WOMEN.
Ever since my arrival in the Wady M'zab, I have
been anxiously wondering if I should have to spend
all my time looking at cemeteries and mosques, or
wandering about amongst the shops, which, by the
way, are curious enough. Should 1 have to leave
the country without having seen any of the women,
and be content with vague information supplied by
those who have never set eyes on them either, and
who used to say to me, shaking their heads,
" Madame, it is quite impossible ! "
Quite impossible to go and see the Mozabite
women ! I felt not unnaturally Incredulous, spoiled
as I had been by the kind welcome I had received
from all the Arab and Berber women I had visited
elsewhere. The more I insisted, however, the
greater were the obstacles thrown in my way ; and
the greater the obstacles, the more eager did I, of
course, become to overcome them. I had heard
that the M'zambiya, or Mozabite woman, has a pink
and white complexion and is of rather a large build,
138
AMONG THE MOZABITE WOMEN.
and I was under the impression, though I could not
be sure, for I rely on the evidence of my own eyes
only, that she enjoys less freedom than any of her
sex in the Sahara. She dwells behind lofty walls,
of smooth, unbroken surface, which give to every
house a misleading appearance of strength. She is
scarcely ever allowed to visit the tombs of the dear
ones she has lost, or to see the few friends she
owns ; indeed, she only meets them at weddings ;
and even on such occasions she is packed up, not
in a veil, but in a huge thick woollen covering,
either grey or white, from which not so much as
A QUAINT CUSTOM. 139
the one bright eye I used to see at El Aghuat
peeps out, and this veil so completely disguises
her that no one can tell in the least what she is
like or how she walks.
I knew, too, this time not from mere hearsay,
but for a well-authenticated fact, that the M'zabiya
is protected alike by what are called the laws of
emigration and — extraordinary expression ! — of the
shirt ! Truly there is nothing more quaint in the
Mussulman system of theology than this law of the
shirt, retained, perfected, and added to by the
Mozabite heretics and proudly boasted of by them
as a guarantee of their conjugal felicity, an infallible
means of patching up any flaws in the marriage
contract or offences against marital fidelity.
It will be remembered that the Mozabite mer-
chant who leaves home on business has to return
-every two years to look after his gardens and
-console his wife for his absence. The latter, in fact
has a right to divorce without appeal if he outstays
his two years. Moreover, which is a far greater
preventive of forgetfulness, she can take her
husband's property away as well as her own when
she leaves his roof. Now, to keep her patient
whilst he is away, the Mozabite takes certain pre-
cautions. When the sad moment for parting
comes, he places one of his shirts in his own place
on the nuptial couch, as a protection to his wife and
as a guard of his honour. If on his return home.
I40 AMONG THE MOZABITE WOMEN.
he finds an addition to his family, the child is his,
bears his name, is accepted as legitimate. No one
makes any invidious remarks ; a miracle has been
wrought, that is all.
I could not help feeling that it was rather absurd
after this to make such a fuss about the admission
of a woman, even if a Rumi, to a Mozabite home,
so I resolved on a bold step. One day I watched
and waited till I saw one of the bundles of wraps
I knew to be a M'zabiya going along in a narrow
alley. The bundle, as if suspecting my design,
fled tremblingly before me, sliding against the
white walls as if entreating those walls to swallow
her up and protect her, as she tried to efface herself
against them. But I had the advantage over her
in my unfettered movements. I caught her up, this
" Faffa " or " Mamma," and I touched her with my
finger. She uttered a cry of distress. I made the
usual polite remark in local use, " How beautiful
thou art ! " at which she seemed to shudder. Then
I tried, very gently of course, to draw aside her
veil and I received a staggering blow, which took
away all wish to persevere. After this she ran
away and disappeared round a corner of the street,
whilst I debated in my mind how I should achieve
my object by less violent means.
I resolved to go and see the Caid of Ghardaya
whom I already knew, for that worthy functionary
was the one whose strained ankle had prevented
AN ARTIFICIAL COUNTRY. 141
him from going with me to the mosque. There is
nothing more convenient in the Wady M'zab than
a strain ; it gets better or worse just as occasion
demands. I found him installed in his adminis-
trative office a long way from his private residence,
but to my questions about the Mozabite women, he
answered never a word. However, he offered to
escort me to the chief oasis. His strained ankle
was better, much better, he could ride quite well
to-day.
So we started together for the lovely gardens
of the oasis, where the plaintive noise made by
the pulleys of the wells — resembling the long-
drawn-out notes of birds — never ceases day or
night. It was spring time, and the trunks of
the sturdy palms were draped with creeping vines,
whilst beneath the shade of their spreading
branches grew numbers of apricot trees, then in
full flower, shedding the pink petals of their
blossoms in the breeze.
I again spoke to the Caid about the women,
and he replied with remarks on dykes and water
channels. He assured me that if all the inhabitants
of the Wady M'zab were to be wrapt in an
enchanted sleep for two months, there would be
no Wady M'zab when they awoke. It would be
dried up, done with — lost for ever ! Everything
here is artificial. To human ingenuity is due
every scrap of vegetation, for it is the hand of
142
AMONG THE MOZABITE WOMEN.
man alone, doling out water drop by drop, which
gives to the torrid sand a temporary fertility.
"You see the shady spot over there," said my
guide. " Well, our families come out here to live
in those little houses, or, rather, to cook in them,
for they live and sleep, even the richest of them,
out of doors under the trees."
I began to question my companion again about
the women. Did they and the young girls come
out here, too ? But, alas ! the Cai'd began to
dwell on the value of a palm tree, which re-
quires some forty years of care to attain its full
development. Suddenly, however, he fell into
the trap, walking into it unconsciously, or, it
may be, with his eyes open, for at last he began
THE MOZABITE STYLE OF COIFFURE. 143
on the subject of which my mind was full by
saying :
"■ We are obliged to have gardens in order to
be able to marry our sons. For the first question
the father of a girl asks is, ' Has he got a good
garden to give me as a dowry ? ' "
I caught the ball at the rebound. " Why,"
I enquired, " do you marry your daughters so
young } I do not think that Allah has ordained
the sacrifice of mere children of eight or nine
years old."
He protested that such things do not happen
now ; girls are not married till they are fourteen.
When, however, I expressed my scepticism, he
did not press the point, and I fancy he guessed
that I was well informed. The fact is, the Caids
shut their eyes to the evil, and allow local cadis
to take refuge beneath the aegis of the law when
such abuses are committed.
" It is all for the best," remarked my guide.
" Good dowries are easily lost it you do not make
haste to secure them." And then he branched off
into confidences about such things as the way
the women dress their hair in these parts. Un-
married girls, he told me, gather their hair
into three very symmetrical little chignons, one
at the back of the head, and one above each
ear, but marriage changes all that, for the matrons
wear one huge chignon very low in the neck,
144 AMONG THE MOZABITE WOMEN.
something in tlie Japanese style. On fete days,
however, some of the hair is piled up above the
forehead, and two long locks droop on either side
of the face.
" All the hair, you know, is well combed out,
and kept very clean."
Truth to tell, I did not at the time understand
all the explanations given me by the worthy Caid,
and it was not until some time later that I verified
his description of the fashionable coiffure of the
Mozabite women.
" Is it true, Caid," I asked presently, " that your
women never receive anybody } "
At this point-blank question he poured out a
volley of words, of which I could only distinguish
a few, such as "no instructions — I don't know —
very unfortunate," and so on.
" But, Caid, I am a friend, you know. You will
take me to see your wife, will you not ? "
He turned pale ; he was evidently annoyed, and
when I repeated my request, he said :
" No, no ; it really is impossible. Do you think
I would refuse anything to you that I could grant ?
My wife would weep, and you would only feel
uncomfortable."
Back again at the office, the Caid gave me some
excellent coffee to drink, and also presented me
with a big box of sweetmeats ; but nothing would
induce him to alter his determination.
A MODERN CARTHAGE. 145
" No, no ; with my wife or any other woman
at Ghardaya, you would only find it very dull."
The afternoon of the next day found me in the
reception-room of a third Caid — that of Ben-Izguen
— amongst piles of stuffs, rusty weapons, baskets,
chests, etc. I had not the slightest hope of
obtaining what I wanted here. In this dissolute
town of rigidly virtuous aspect, hostile, too, as
it was to the Rumis, how could I expect that
barriers and obstacles would be removed to please
me ?
No, I had no hope ! I was fresh from my
wanderings in the mysterious-looking streets,
reminding me of the Carthage of olden times, with
the fortress-like houses, the doors barred with iron,
the footways raised about a foot and a half above
the ground. But this modern Carthage was a
Carthage in the desert, a bigoted Mussulman
Carthage, where the merchants of sweet-smelling
spices are not privileged to indulge in the " in-
famous customs," described by Flaubert. The
worship of Allah combined with a certain memory
of that of Tanith, produces a curious mixture,
and the traditional little bastion to each house,
supposed to have been originally built by the
angels to protect pious Mozabites from intrusion,
is the only thing to distinguish Ben-Izguen from
Ghardaya, and even that gives one the impression
of an anachronism.
10
146
AMONG THE MOZABITE WOMEN.
But to return to my Caid. Presently I saw
him bring forth from a chest a wonderful collection
of tinsel finery, a perfect tangle of many-coloured
ribbons. He placed the whole pile in front of me,
and I made out several decorations, amongst which
I recognized the well-known Academic palms.
Evidently my Caid was ambitious. Did he
jm.
aspire to the honour of wearing the red ribbon ?
I wondered. Shall I be very much blamed for
turninof to account his mistaken ideas of mv
influence with the home authorities ? Without
the slightest hesitation I said to him :
" I should like to see your wife, oh Caid ! "
He gave me a searching look, shook his head,
and then disappeared into the heiirm, or harem.
/ ENTER A SACRED PLACE. 147
What was going on, I wondered, behind those
walls ? What orders was the master issuing —
what severe instructions ? Anyhow, a quarter
of an hour later, I had been ushered into the
sacred place, in other words, into a semi-covered-
in court of considerable size, a kind of atrium, to
which air and light are admitted by means of a
large bay window, open to the blue sky of heaven.
There she stood, the wife of the Caid, between
her daughter-in-law and her sister-in-law, em-
barrassed but smiling, stretching out her bare
arms, loaded with bracelets, towards me. A veil
embroidered with a floral design of many colours,
fell from the fichu which served her as head
covering', and was worn low on the forehead
o
and fastened behind. A quantity of woollen
drapery completed the costumes, evidently those
of every day of the three women, indigo blue
for the wife, dark red for her daughter, and dark
green for her sister. This drapery was arranged
about their well-formed, robust-looking figures,
in wide folds, leaving the neck and shoulders,
which were of gleaming whiteness, quite bare ;
I never saw such milk-white complexions any-
where else, except amongst the women of Sweden,
as those of these Mozabites. The effect was
heightened by the ebony of the hair and the
jet of the eyes.
" Enti zina." "Thou art beautiful," I said to
10*
148 AMONG THE MOZABITE WOMEN.
each of the three in Arabic, for I did not know a
word of their language, and they smiled at me in a
contented way. Then they squeezed my hands
and embraced me, pressing me against their
breasts, in spite of all the formidable pins they
wore, which were not unlike stilettoes. I felt rather
as if I were being caressed by amiable panthers,
and I should not have been sorry to have had
some sure protector beside me, if only my little
servant Miloud, who had been turned back at the
door with gestures of horror at the idea of his
comino- in.
" Thou art amiable, thy house is beautiful,
may Allah reward thee for thy kind welcome,"
I went on, but they did not understand me. They
only stared at me in an inquiring way, with
eyes in which I saw a dawning distress.
The Caid began to laugh, and I said to him :
" But, Caid, they understood what I said
just now well enough," to which that profound
psychologist replied in a peremptory tone, as he
pointed a very fat finger upwards : "A woman
always understands when she is told she is
beautiful."
Then the women, who were not yet spoiled
by the stoutness of middle age, placed their
superb arms about my waist, and led me round
the hall or atrium. In the middle of one of the
walls, I noticed a strange - looking stove, a
A PEREMPTORY CAID. 149
furnace in fact, used for washing, as well as cook-
ing, judging by the gutters for carrying off water.
In any museum it would be taken fof an altar
of human sacrifice. The many-coloured decorations
of the walls, the quaint-looking vases, etc., were
all quite unlike anything I had seen amongst
the Arabs, and there was about everything a
barbaric sumptuousness, a reserved dignity, so to
speak, which I found very impressive.
"But come! " cried the Caid, and it was, alas!
outside I had to come, for in his opinion my
visit had lasted long enough. He cut short the
gestures of farewell of the women ; he was evidently
nervous and a little uneasy.
" Do your women never go out, then ? " I
asked. " Do they not find it dull during your long
absences ? "
"Why should they find it dull?" he replied.
" They guard their virtue even as Khadija
did."
The reader will remember who Khadija was :
the first wife of the Prophet, the venerable Mother
of the Faithful ( Uinmu — Mtiviinin), the wealthy old
female merchant, whom Mahomet so completely
wheedled, and whom he left at home when he
went to trade in Syria, Mesopotamia, or even
as far away as Persia. Khadija believed blindly
in his mission, even in his famous journey to
Heaven.
I50 AMONG THE MOZABITE WOMEN.
To follow the example of Khadija! That
means to say, the Mozabite women are to be
content to remain alone for two years or more,
whenever the exigencies of money-making require
it. Admire your husband, ■ believe all he tells
you, however improbable and absurd it may be,
that is the advice ofiven to the Mozabite wife
who, moreover, must wear mourning, nothing but
black, and lay aside all her ornaments, during her
lord's interminable absences. The only consolations
and distractions she has are those of the shirt,
already described, and the dances of her negress
servants. They are dull, these poor women, what-
ever the Ca'id of Ben-Izguen may say to the
contrary. They are dull, though they live in fairly
big towns, for they are not allowed to go beyond
the narrow limits of their houses, they never get
any change of scene whatever. Their beautiful
limbs are enchained by the most rigid superstitions,
they are a prey to the most harrowing nervous
tremors. They are afraid of mere shadows, and
they are consumed with ennui ; as a result, hysteria
is rife amongst them, and it is no rare thing for
one of them to go out of her mind.
When the husband comes back the whole house-
hold brightens up, and a regular fete is held in
his honour. His arrival with his purse well filled,
and his baggage full of presents for his women,
is indeed cause for rejoicing. No more black
A MOZABITE WOMAN
A TOUCHING CEREMONY. 153
garments, no more melancholy looks ! Out of the
chest come the huge jewels, the costly, but heavy
barbaric ornaments. The negresses give them-
selves up to the preparations for feasting on a
grand scale : a camel is roasted, whole sheep
are boiled and served with rice, all manner of
cakes mixed with oil are turned out, all to testify
to the joy which the presence of the master causes
— or ought to cause in the home.
There is one very pretty custom connected
with the return of the long-absent husband. The
happy wife bids all the poor and beggars of the
place to a feast, which is given in the cemetery,
where all meet together. The hostess and her
servants bring out great dishes of kouskous, meat,
rice and bread, with big pitchers of water. Then,
on the Tomb of her dead parents, the wife dispenses
all these good things, which she calls alms, and
after the meal, the pots and dishes from which it
was served, are broken to the accompaniment of
weeping and prayer. Amongst the piles of pieces
of crockery on the tombs, a few provisions are
left for the spirits of the departed — supposed to
be always wandering near these homes of the
dead.
" Do not persecute us, but rejoice with us in
our happiness ! May Allah keep you in peace and
health ! "
Of course, I did not find out all this about the
154 AMONG THE MOZABITE WOMEN.
manners and customs of the Mozabite women in
my twenty minutes' interview with the wife and
sister of the Cai'd of Ben-Izguen. Emboldened
by my first experience, and shutting my eyes to
the fact that it was exceptional, I managed to gain
admission to the women's quarter in several other
houses. I went on knocking at the barred entrances,
bristling though they were with iron, until at last
they were opened to me. I slipped in behind the
jealously-guarded and half-opened door, taking
no notice of hostile or forbidding looks ; and in
the end I recognized the wisdom of the Caid of
Ghardaya, when he said to me in the oasis, " You
would only find it dull."
Everywhere the reception I met with was any-
thing but pleasant. Several times, indeed, the
hostility became active, and I was turned out bodily.
In one or two instances I was even in danger.
But I had my reasons for persevering in my
efforts, unwelcome though they were. Was I to
be content to learn nothing about these Mozabite
women, when I had become quite familiar with
the rest of their sisters of the Sahara ? No, indeed!
So I went on, still interested but sad at heart, so
very depressing was the hatred I met with on
every side, the effect of which was like that of the
ice and fog of winter, penetrating to the very joints
and marrow.
For all that, however, what poetic pictures I
A SORROWING MOTHER. 157
carried away in my memory. One family I
remember especially, whom I visited in the twilight.
There they were, all gathered together in the
atrium, the pungent smoke from the juniper
wood burning in the grate rising up to the blue
patch of open sky above. Father, mother, several
children, including the little fiancee of one of them,
all putting a great restraint on themselves, holding
themselves perfectly rigid, in fact, in their struggle
to resist the desire to throw me out into the street.
Their silence, their clenched fists, their mute
attitudes of defiance, gave to them the fierce beauty
of the conquered in the presence of the victorious
enemy. Then in another house, a fine large
residence, there was a camel in the ante-chamber,
stretching out its long shaggy neck in the style
of early sacred pictures, and, crouching on the
hearth within, bending over a little child, was a
woman past early youth, but still beautiful, and
pathetic-looking. With a cold, dignified, almost
aggressive simplicity, she raised seven of her
fingers and uttered the Arab word, maoiU (dead).
And her negress servant, as she escorted me out,
thought it necessary to translate and comment
upon that one word, for she remarked laconically
and confidentially : Morto, sebba imUchatclui fini
morto ! One of my sister Rumiyas, in fact, one
of the sisters under Cardinal Lavio-erie, had
caused all the trouble by wanting to wash one
158 AMONG THE MO ZA BITE WOMEN.
of the children. The touch of water the Mozabite
women think is fatal to little ones, and this one
touch had been enough to kill six others who had
been brouQ-ht within the contagion.
Then I often think of a little Mozabite with small
delicately-moulded limbs who had already been
married for four years, and was soon to become
a mother, yet carried her burden with an ease
and grace which were almost aesthetic, and are
quite unknown to women disfigured by hard work
and corsets. I don't know whether her husband
was absent or at home just then, but I shall never
forget her pretty attitude as she stood gently
driving away the doves which kept coming to perch
on her head and on her bare shoulders. This
charming little woman was the only Mozabitya
who did not tremble at my approach.
"Oh, Allah, what shall we do?" she cried.
" Here is the Rumiya coming into the house! "
But she showed no ill temper about the tiring
purifications she would have to see to after I was
gone, to wash away the profanation caused by my
Christian footsteps.
A less pleasant episode occurred when I intruded
on an assembly of women on the second day of a
marriage fete. Whether they were excited by the
games and dancing which had been going on, I do
not know, but they behaved in a brutal way to me,
and drove me out ignominiously. I took refuge on
A POINT OF VANTAGE.
159
the terrace, where they dared not follow me, for fear
they should be seen in my contaminating presence.
I looked down in fear and trembling from my point
of vantage, thinking how ugly their angry faces were
as they gnashed their teeth at me. Loaded with the
tinsel finery of their gala array, their cheeks painted
white, red and gold, the tips of their noses and their
chins touched with pitch, of all things in the world to
use as an ornament, badly curled locks of hair falling
along the sides of the temples, and heavy jewels
here, there and everywhere, their appearance was
certainly anything but attractive. Whereas the
simple fichus and massive ornaments of their every-
day costumes make them look like demure saints
about to emerge from their shrines.
As will be understood at once, I could not take
i6o AMONG THE MOZABITE WOMEN.
up my abode for good in the niches or in the pigeon
holes on the terrace. I had to get down again some-
how, and when I set about doing so a terrible scene
ensued. The bride of nine years old began to cry,
the chief bridesmaid to scream ! some little wives
married the previous year, one eight, the other ten
years old — oh, Caid of Ghardaya, what did you tell
me ? — yelled till they were out of breath. Then the
rest of the women, the adults, flung themselves upon
me, beating me, pushing me about, scratching me,
and even pulling out a lock of my hair. Did they
want to keep it as a souvenir, I wonder ? As for me,
my recollection of them is anything but affectionate
or grateful. The scene is still a nightmare to me,
the one nightmare of my journey. Later, when the
night-wind swept as was its wont across the desert,
I fancied that I heard in my sleep the clamouring
of the Mozabite women, and that their malienant
hands were shaking my tent as if it were an old
plum tree.
" Oh, Allah ! oh, Allah ! " I seemed to hear them
cry, "here is the Rumiya coming into the house ! "
A MISTAKEN IMPRESSION. i6i
CHAPTER IX.
NEGRESS SLAVES.
" Madame, would you not like to buy a pretty
negress ? I know of one for sale, whom you can
have for a hundred douros." *
That is a question which was actually put to me
during my recent visit to the Algerian Sahara. I
must, however, hasten to add that there is really
nothing revolting in the survival of a custom we
Europeans consider barbarous. Slaves are never
treated in this land of patriarchal manners with the
harshness and cruelty which led to so much weeping
over the Uncle Toms of the New World. The life
of the negroes of the Sahara, in the Wady M'zab
and at El Aghuat, is that so well described by
Bernardin de Saint Pierre, in his " Paul et Virginie."
Marie and Domingue, the good servants who were
so devoted to their mistresses, who spoiled Paul,
adored Virginie, and were looked upon in return as
members of the family, were really, to all intents
* A douro is worth about four shillings and fourpence in English
money. — Trans.
II
1 62 NEGjRESS slaves.
and purposes slaves, the actual property of those
to whom they gave themselves up so entirely and
so willingly.
When the decree for the abolition of slavery was
promulgated in Southern Algeria, there was con-
sternation amongst the masters, and grief amongst
the negroes. The former enquired what crime
there could be in feeding, clothing, and in return
receiving easy service from those who, in their
own land, would probably have been eaten by their
stronger fellow countrymen, or would, if they escaped
that fate, have succumbed to the privations and
persecution to which they were subjected. The
slaves, finding themselves alone in the desert free,
really free, but without kouskoiis, without clothes,
with no object in life, no one to love, or to love
them, were in despair. For almost always, when a
dog loses his master, it is the dog who grieves the
most ; at least, this is how it is with country dogs ;
I can't answer for those who have been perverted
by living in a town 1
The Arab offices now became thronged with
weeping negroes, for the masters, afraid of dis-
obeying, conformed at first to the new regula-
tions, and, with the sorrow of death in their
souls, turned away the companions of their
wandering lives in the desert, and the guardians
of their hearths. When caravans from a dis-
tance arrived, white and black men wept together
DESPAIR OF MASTERS AND SLAVES. 163
over an evil for which there seemed to be no
remedy.
" Who will help us with the work of irrigation ?
Who will take care of our children ? Who will
help our women in the house ? " sighed the
masters.
And the answer was :
" Keep your negroes as free servants, and pay
them salaries."
To which one and all replied : " But if we have
no money ? " Whilst the slaves on their side
urged : " What shall we do with money ? And
if our masters die, what will become of us suppos-
ing their heirs do not want to keep us .^ "
So it went on ; murmuring and complaining on
every side. And the civil and military establish-
ments were full of weeping negroes, and everyone
wondered how it would all end.
In the course of a few years things settled down.
Besides the negroes who came as emigrants to
settle at Ghardaya or El Aghuat, who are perfectly
free, and were established there long before the
French occupation, there are three classes of blacks
in the Sahara ; those who are treated like European
servants, those who are nominally in receipt of
wages — which are never paid — and those who have
been made slaves in the good old-fashioned way,
and whom the French leave in the condition in
which they found them, a tolerant proceeding for
II*
1 64 NEGRESS SLAVES.
which I, for one, do not blame them. The first
comers amongst the negroes, the original emigrants
alluded to above, live in colonies under the control
of a Caid of their own. Their social organization
is a system of mutual help, the women do the
washing, etc., the men go out as gardeners by the
day.
The two classes of negroes who are practically
the property of their masters, that is to say, those
who never receive the wages they are nominally
entitled to, and the actual slaves, now live exactly
as they did before the time of the abolition
decree. It is only the first of the three groups,
those who are actually paid wages, who are really
unhappy at the present time. With his wages
the negro buys wine and raw spirits. He gets
drunk, and loses his situation. Then he sinks
into poverty and misery, and his one ambition is
to find a good place as a slave or oticif. But this
he rarely succeeds in doing, and charity alone,
that virtue so much in repute amongst the Arabs,
saves him from dying of hunger.
The word oucif signifies in the Sahara either
negro or slave, for the two things were identical
in the old days when the dialect now in use was
evolved. ]\Iost of the oucifs were born in the
houses of the parents of their masters, but there
are certain alien elements amongst them, for there
is a constant influx of negroes from the Soudan.
A SIGNIFICANT ANECDOTE. 165
whose numbers are augmented by the gifts of
slaves received by the great Arab merchants from
the pious Mussulman population on the Niger.
Very significant of how things were with them
in their hot country are some of the stories
told about these slaves from the Niger. A little
girl who had not long been owned by a certain
Arab Caid, and had been lent by him to the wife
of a French officer, ran away from her comfortable
situation at the end of a week, and threw herself
at the feet of her real owner, her features haggard
and convulsed, her whole form trembling with
terror. "Oh, Ca'id ! Oh, my father!" she cried,
"take me away from those people." The Caid
at once jumped to the conclusion that the child
had been cruelly ill-treated, but at last, between
her sobs, she managed to explain the cause of her
frantic despair : " Oh, take me away," she gasped ;
"they give me too much food to eat!" The
astonishment of the Caid can be imagined, and
five notes of interrogation alone could do justice to
his expression at hearing such a complaint. Good
food naturally seemed to him a gift from Allah
to be thankfully accepted, but at last, after much
questioning, he elicited from the little negress the
explanation : " Oh, Caid, dost thou not understand
that they are fattening me up to eat me ? "
I really do not know which is the more important
in the Sahara, the negro or the negress. The
i66 NEGRESS SLAVES.
latter is often a great favourite with her master,
it is true, but the former is quite indispensable
to him, and is entrusted with many a confidential
mission. The devotion of both is absolutely un-
limited ; they are as faithful as dogs to their
owners. They have none of the laziness with
which the blacks are so often charged. Then
they are such sympathetic creatures, and so easily
contented, these worthy negroes of the Sahara !
A very good and typical specimen is the old coffee
roaster, Barka, who is eighty-seven years old, and
whose philosophy is summed up in the brief
sentence, " a good sou to buy tobacco and a good
wife." Moreover, which is certainly very unlike
what we have to put up with at home nowadays,
young negro servants are as devoted as old ones,
although, as is natural, their wisdom and experience
are less than those of their predecessors. In all
well-to-do families they are to be met with, and
they are treated as children of the house. One
young negro told me that his mistress had herself
fed him from the breast when he was a baby, a
very significant proof of the affection between
mistress and servant. Indeed, the great kindness
shewn by the women of the big tents to their
negresses is one of the most pleasing characteristics
of the quiet, secluded life they lead, shewing that
their instincts are certainly by no means bad if they
cannot, perhaps, always be called altogether good.
ULU HAKKA.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SLAVES. 169
It will be understood from all that I have
said that in the Wady M'zab, annexed but a short
time ago, slavery still exists, under a thin disguise.
The slaves, in fact, play a very important part
amongst the Mozabites. What would the gardens
be like without the negroes ? What would become
of the Mozabite ladies without the negresses ?
At every turn in the streets you meet the latter,
distinguishable by their blue draperies, hurrying
about on their errands. They are alike musicians,
singers, soothsayers, confidantes and accomplices.
They are better than mere messengers, better
than the best couriers, for they bring a little fresh
air into the jealously-guarded harem, and, thanks
to them, news does sometimes penetrate behind
the strongly-barred doors. They represent all
the life, the brightness and the activity of the
gloomy interiors in which the women of the Sahara
pass their lives, and their dancing and singing
are the sole distractions of the evenings.
The greatest indulgence is always shewn to
the negresses and their husbands, for they all
marry or form more or less legal unions. Presents
are given to them, and they are even allowed
to celebrate in their masters' houses the heathen
fetes they still keep up, in spite of their conversion
to Mohammedanism. Truly there is something
very charming about the religious ceremonies of
these negro slaves, invocations, sacrifices, super-
lyo NEGRESS SLAVES.
stitions, mad dervish-like antics and all. Long
may the good fellows amuse themselves, in their
innocent way, for in the pious and hypocritical
Wady M'zab, where never a trill of song is allowed
to pass the lips of the native woman, where not a
note of music is ever permitted to profane the
air, except in the places — let them be accursed ! —
protected by the wicked Rumis, the tinkling
of the castanets and the ron ron of the tam-tavis
or cymbals of the negroes goes on all night.
"The joy of the slave," says the proverb, "is
as a crown to the brow of his master."
Yes, negresses of Ghardaya, Ben-Izguen and
El-Ateuf, it is with beautiful arms and supple
movements, and smiles showing your gleaming
white teeth, that you place that crown of joy
upon the heads of your masters !
THE NOMADS OF THE SAHARA. 171
CHAPTER X.
THE QUEST FOR WATER AMONGST THE
NOMAD ARABS.
But it is time for us to leave the Wady M'zab.
I have compared it to an islet, alone in the vast
expanse of waters. Truly this was a just com-
parison, for the sandy districts surrounding it —
the forbidding Chebka, the Shaanba Sahara,
and the dreary Wady N'ssa differ less from
the smiling districts occupied by the Mozabites,
than do the poverty-stricken nomads from the
wealthy heretic merchants.
It is the nomads of the Sahara, whether they
be mercenaries of the Mozabites or not, who
seem to me to be the real inhabitants of the far-
stretching arid wastes, which have their own magic
and pathetic beauty.
There is nothing particularly captivating or
sublime about any one of these inhabitants, taken
singly. It is, in fact, the environment which
supplies the charm, and never did I see the human
being harmonize more entirely with the frame in
172
THE QUEST FOR WATER.
which he is set, than does the nomad of the desert.
Never elsewhere did I more fully realize the
insignificance of man as compared with nature ;
for that great passing dream called life is like
the dust driven by the wind, the accumulated
grains of which make up the Desert.
I loved them, then, these children of the Sahara,
even as one loves the rocks of the mountains
or the blast of the storm, and their memory abides
with me much as does that of certain of the
brute creation, which appeal to us in a language
of which they themselves have no suspicion.
The appearance, the customs, the modes of
thought, of the nomads were a revelation to
WHAT A wAdY is. 173
me of the force of the elements in their native
land, and also brought home to me the wonderful
truthfulness of the descriptions in the writings of
the ancients, which are so instinct with that feeling
of awe inspired by the reality. Yea, I have greeted
thee, oh Earth, which crumbles away and engulfs
us ; Wind, which rends the rocks and effaces the
dunes ; Fire, which burns and destroys ; Water,
without which all life perishes !
Divine water, with which "Allah," says the Koran
(Surah xvi. verse 69), " the all-merciful, resuscitates
the earth when it is dead." Men bless it and
women sing its praises, for truly it is a super-
natural gift. Water, divine water, dominates
the existence of these people ; nearly all their time
is passed in seeking it.
How can we camp, how can we settle down,
without water ? they say ; how can we build our
storehouses and our giirbis (huts) ? Whether
nomad or sedentary, the dwellers in the desert
must find what they call a r dir, or place where
water filters through the sand, or a well already
sunk, or they must themselves bore one in the
wady, which is in the desert what the river is
elsewhere.
It seems a strange thing to talk about boring
a well in a wady, or river, but it must be re-
membered that a wady, strictly speaking, is the
channel of a watercourse that is dry, except every
174 THE QUEST FOR WATER.
two or three years, after a storm, when the water
rushes tumultuously along, flecked with foam, like
the waves of the sea. As a rule, the course of
the rivers of the Sahara is subterranean, and by
digging a few feet into the sand choking up the
bed, a yellow brackish liquid is found. This
water, never very abundant, quickly corrodes and
absorbs the walls of the well sunk to obtain
it, so that it soon becomes more and more like
mortar.
Do not cry out in disgust. The people of the
Sahara drink this water with eager enjoyment and
gratitude. You would drink it too, if your thirst
were as great as theirs. Yes, you would drink it
with intense delight, even after it had become
tainted and stale by being carried for two or three
days in skins in the hot sun !
In other districts, where there are no wadys or
underground rivers, deeper wells are sunk, and a
little water of a very inferior character is obtained,
the wells being constructed of good masonry, and
taken care of by a guardian or keeper, who
is sometimes also the owner. A few palm trees
are planted about these wells and are watered by
hand. Just imagine what the life of the wife of
this guardian, or of the wives of his sons, must
be, tied down to this port in the ocean of sand,
condemned to the isolation of the Desert, with
absolutely no hope of change. How often must
THE OLD MALEKITE CODE.
175
they be torn by conflicting emotions — pride in
the ownership of their well, and pity for those
who drag themselves to it in the hope of a
drink. Their husbands often repeat to them frag-
ments of the old Malekite code, by which the
torrid South was ruled before the arrival of the
Mussulmans : —
"Article 1220. — The master of a well can dis-
pose of it as of water in a vessel belonging to
him.
"Article 1221. — Nevertheless, he is bound to
give to drink gratuitously to him who is in danger
176 THE QUEST FOR WATER.
of perishing of thirst, and to others in return for
payment.
" Article 1223. — But whosoever shall have dug
a well in the dead districts of the Sahara (this
is the great bone of contention — where do the
cultivated districts end and the dead ones
begin ?) shall be bound to let all use the water
without payment, in the following prescribed
order.
"Article 1224. — First of all the traveller may
drink, and the bucket for drawing up the water
shall be lent to him ; after him the inhabitant of
the district shall drink ; then the animals or the
flocks of the owner of the well ; each one in his
turn can drink of the water, but in case of urgency
let him who is in danger drink first ! "
Ah, danger ! That is the word, the one most
important thing which binds together all the
wanderers in the Desert. I remember one broiling
day when we missed one of the subalterns of our
escort, a silly young fellow named Tahar. We
had exhausted our supply of water, but for all
that the sokrhars and guides all declared that they
would wait on those burning dunes, where it was
as hot as in an oven, until Tahar was found. To
go in search of him would only be to lessen his
chance of joining them again. We should all
drink, or nobody should ! The anxiety of all
A TREACHEROUS WADY. 177
these good comrades was immense, although
Tahar was neither the friend nor the relation of
any of them. At last the camel drivers who had
been sent to hunt for him came back, bringing
the truant with them, who had hurt his leg and
could only limp along. Well might we have
quoted the proverb : " Make sure of your travelling
companion even before you make sure of the
way."
Sometimes this much-prized water, comes in
greater quantities than you care about ; there is
no such thing as moderation in hot climates. At
such times the lower parts of the plain are con-
verted into a lake, with angry, tossing waves, which
rush along, carrying tents, animals and men with
them.
The French soldiers were more than once
surprised in this way in some wady they had
not suspected of being a river in disguise, and
several dozens of them met their deaths by drown-
ing. The natives, warned by experience, are more
careful, and choose the higher ground for their
encampments ; but even they do not always
escape ; as witness the disaster which, some
fifteen years ago, overtook the dawar of the
M'Khaliffs at a little distance from El-Aehuat,
CD '
which was carried away bodily, leaving no trace
behind it but a heap of corpses, the camels being
all killed, as well as the women and children. But
12
178
THE QUEST FOR WATER.
it was Maktub, or fate, said the surviv^ors, and
they thought no more about it. Does a banker
keep on dwelling on the accidents which take
place in his gold mines ? Water is wealth, it is a
sevenfold sacred thing and every mother teaches
her children to use it sparingly and to hold it in
reverent honour.
" Throw no water away until thou hast found
: i i l ^ iiri M iiUgiJi ||l<W!atWIJ8l *''°^'^f:'
water," she says. " On the feet of the horse of
thy father, or of the Caid, alone shalt thou pour
water."
When a child is leaving home, either to go with
a caravan or to stay with some influential relations,
the women who are to be left behind make him
drink as a stirrup cup a bowl of water drawn
especially for him from the nearest well. This
AJiAB NAME FOR JVATEJi. 179
water will act as a charm to bind him to the
house or the tent of his fathers. " We shall not
lose him/' they say, " he has drunk the water ; "
the water, the short soft easy Arab name of which
was the first to be stammered by his baby lips :
" Ma-el-Ma ! "
\2
1
GIRL BABIES OF NO ACCOUNT.
CHAPTER XL
ABOUT BIRTH AND MARRIAGE AMONGST THE
ARAB TRIBES.
When a daughter is born in the tent of a dawar
of the Arabs of the Sahara, there is no feasting
or rejoicing. On the contrary, the event is passed
over in silence, just as some slur on the family
name would be. The father declines to look upon
his progeny, and sometimes repudiates his wife
for " giving him no children." For a girl is not
looked upon as a child ; she is just a girl, and the
contemporaries of Mohammed would have thought
no more of burying her alive than Europeans do
of drowning troublesome kittens. Mohammed him-
self says, or, rather, Allah says, for the Prophet's
words were inspired: "Will you attribute to God
as a child with a soul the being which grows up
decked in ornaments and finery, and always
insists upon disputing without reason .-^ "
It is very much the same amongst the sedentary
tribes. Only they are less natural about it, and
hide their disappointment at the birth of a girl
l82
BIRTH AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
better. Tolba — that being the plural for Taleb,
or a man learned in the Koran and all sacred
things — are invited to come and recite prayers,
and the women who live near the mother hasten,
one after the other, to see her during the nine
days of her retirement. They console her by
reminding her of the many heroines revered by
the Mussulman religion, such as Khadija, the
virtuous wife of the Prophet ; Aisha, his favourite
young wife whom he held so sacred. May Allah
preserve them all ! To go yet further back, there
was the blessed Miriam,* and they appeal to the
Koran itself — touching confession of the inferiority
of the feeble sex — yet, at the same time, a proof
of the glory which may yet occasionally accrue
to a woman.
" Oh, Lord," they quote, " all power is in Thy
* Mary, the mother of Jesus. — Trans.
A TOUCHING LAMENT. 183
hands, all good is in Thy hands, for Thou art
All-powerful.
" Thou dividest the night from the day and
the day from the night, Thou bringest death out
of life and life out of death. Thou givest food
to whom Thou wilt.
" God chose out from amongst all men Adam
and Noah, the family of Abraham, and that of
Imran. These families were descended the one
from the other, Allah sees and hears all.
" The wife of Imran having then received the
promise of a child, prayed : ' Oh, Lord, I dedicate
to Thee that which is in my womb.' And when
she was delivered, she lamented : ' Oh, Lord,
Lord, I have given birth to a girl.' Allah knew
well what she had brought forth, for a boy is
not like a girl. ' I have brought a girl into the
world, and I have called her Miriam.'
" Now the Lord had for all that caused her to
bring forth a beautiful creature, and Zacharias
the priest took care of the child. Every time he
visited Miriam he found good food near her.
'Oh, Miriam,' he said, 'whence hast thou this
food?' 'It comes from God, for God feeds
abundantly those whom He will, and does not
dole it out bit by bit.' "
According to the commentaries on the Koran,
although Zacharias carefully closed the seven gates
of the Temple, he always found winter fruit
1 84 BIRTH AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
near Miriam in the summer and summer fruit in
the winter.
Touchingly significant of the ideal of a people
who know so well what it is to suffer from
hunger, is the reference to the delight in the good
food supplied to her of Miriam, the gentle virgin
who was to conceive, through the overshadowing
of the Most High, Him whom the Arabs them-
selves respectfully speak of as Sidna Aissa, our
Lord Jesus Christ.
I have quoted above the passage from the Koran
because it is so very characteristic, showing as
it does how the wife of Imran, whom we Christians
call St. Anne, looked upon the birth of a girl
when she had been promised — or thought she had
been promised — a child, that is to say, a son.
And I am reminded in this connection of the
anxious face of a young Harazlia nomad whom I
saw in his tent, pitched near the walls of Wargla,
far away from El Aghuat, the head - quarters
of his tribe. Beneath the tattered covering of
that tent a woman, or rather a girl of fifteen, in
a shabby red garment, was tossing in a feverish
sleep. Her only ornaments were some copper
bracelets and a little silver brooch, fastened at
her breast. Evidently wife and husband were very
badly off.
Presently the latter said to me : " I am a poor
man ; I come here to sell baskets of alfa. I do
AN ANXIOUS HUSBAND.
185
not want the tubib (doctor) of the French soldiers
to come and see my wife, and I have no money
to pay for a taleb cf our own. Give me some
medicine (diia), then, oh, Rumiya ! "
I enquired : " What is the matter with your
wife ? Wake her, and let me examine her."
Then he answered me : " There is nothing the
matter with her, oh, Rumiya ; why should we
wake her if Allah wishes her to sleep ? But her un-
born child is ill, very ill. Oh, believe me, perhaps
he will die ! and if it is a child (that is to say, a boy)
I do not wish him to die. Oh, Rumiya, I have
no child yet ! "
His voice was choked with anguish, and when I
looked meaningly at two tiny dirty little girls in
tattered maliffas who were playing near, he added,
i86 BIRTH AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
in a surly voice, " They are only the girls of another
wife."
" Are they not yours then ? "' I enquired.
" Yes, they are mine ! " he replied. They were
evidently, however, of no account compared to
the unknown possible " child," who, according
to his father, was in danger of never seeing the
light. I must add that there is a word for
boy in the Arab language, but it is hardly ever
used ; a child always means a boy, and the ex-
pression " I have no child,*' is as significant in
the desert as " 1 have no son " would be in
Europe.
To die without male issue is considered a humi-
liating misfortune, but to die without any issue at
all is still worse, and means the loss of many
chances of eternal life.
Touched by the man's distress, I gave him a
little bi-carbonate of soda, which could do neither
harm nor good. I never found out whether the
strange malady from which the unborn child was
suffering, was cured, or whether three months after
the young wife gave birth to a girl, and in her
turn exclaimed piteously, " Oh, Lord, Lord, I have
brought a girl into the world."' If it were so, no
doubt the reception accorded to the new arrival
was of the coldest.
No doubt either that the old women of the
Harazlia tribe belonging to the same dawar as the
ARAB LOVE FOR CHILDREN. 187
poor little wife secretly brought her the traditional
caouah ; they wrapped up the baby girl, smeared
her scarcely opened eyelids with kohl, manipu-
lated her skull, invoking the name of Allah, and
they bestowed on her, with prayer, the name of
Khadija, or of Mesauda, meaning the daughter
of her father. But it all had to be done mys-
teriously, with hushed movements, in whispered
tones, instead of with the noisy joy with which
the birth of a real child, a son, would have been
celebrated.
" My son ! my son, 02ildi ! ouldi ! "
However, when the first bitterness of disappoint-
ment is over, little girls and little boys are brought
up in the same manner, equally petted and spoiled by
their mothers. Dirty and covered with flies, they
are jolted about on her shoulders as she carries
them about, or they are left to play, with the goats
and chickens in the warm soft sand which purifies
everything. They are all happy enough, kindly,
indeed tenderly, treated by their mothers and
grandmothers, and sli// nioi'e loved by their fathers.
To realise the one great moral beauty of the race,
the intense love of childhood, you ought to see an
Arab father carrying in his arms a little nmtchat-
chit of two years old. If this great love sometimes
degenerates into something less — for this torrid
climate vitiates even nature — it still remains a
fact that it is general, very constant and very
i88 BIRTH AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
Strong. And the father of the girl whose birth he
so bitterly deplored, insists on her having, when
she is but six months old, plenty of bracelets and
earrings, her soft little ankles must be encircled by
little khalkhals ; she must wear a little silk
nniJianna on her head, fastened in the middle of
Mi. \V-
her forehead. The father will sell an extra sheep,
and eat a koiiskous the less, so that his little
Khadija may be properly decked out !
I have passed months amongst the Arabs of the
Southern districts, I have dwelt with the wild and
degraded desert tribes, and I hereby bear witness
that I never once saw a child ill treated. Of no
country of Europe, not even of France or of
England, could such an assertion be made.
So they roll about in the sand, these little men
HAPPINESS OF ARAB CHILDREN. 189
and women, the girls arranging their finery, the
boys galloping on little donkeys ; it is delightful,
in spite of their ignorance of soap and water, to
watch them in their long Boating many-coloured
garments, through which their supple naked limbs
can be distinctly made out. Stains on those
garments look like ornaments, rents serve for ven-
tilation. The children, especially where ophthalmia
is not so prevalent, may well be called the smile of
the desert ; they live and enjoy life on scanty diet,
milk and dates. They revel in all the freedom of
wide-spreading horizons, they have constant change,
happy little wild animals that they are, natural and
unfettered by convention.
All too soon, the boy becomes the nomad
hunter, the warrior, the beast of prey, more cruel
than his adult relations, because he has not yet
learnt the bitter lessons of experience ; the little girl
remains na'ive, arch, affected, very feminine, with
something, in spite of brown skin, nudity and dirt,
of the solemn gravity of Kate Greenaway's
children. On fete days especially, in all her
ornaments and with her new snow-white veil
on, this resemblance of expression comes out
in spite of the great difference of costume.
Yes, childish haughtiness and quaint gravity
are the predominatino- characteristics of the Arab
maidens. I see them, as I write, those little
Mesaudas, Fatmas, or Zuinas, etc., whom I
I90 BIRTH AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
used to meet on my way to and fro, look-
ing at me with their big eyes, but anxious not
to appear inquisitive. I remember the stiff dig-
nity with which they made their brief answers
to my questions, and their efforts to disguise
the joy the gift of a pin or a French sweet-
meat gave them. Their affected indifference,
which was so amusing, seemed to me to be reahy
much greater than that of the girls belonging
to the sedentary tribes, my little friends, Zorah,
Hauli, Fatma, Graira, Arrifa, and above all, the
important four-year-old Kerah, who was so
protectively condescending to the three-year-old
Aisha-S'rira. These maidens, of the village or the
town, know what good manners are, and exactly
where to draw the line between the reserve
demanded by convention and the interest required
by courtesy. They fluttered about my room — or
what served me as a room — like little doves,
silendy opening my boxes to peep into them, or
examining my toilette utensils, or they would linger
about the fire, for the evenings and mornings in
the Sahara are so fresh that a fire is necessary
in spite of the great heat of the day. This fire
is lit either in the da7' or house, in the street just
outside it, or on the threshold of the tent. If the
fire were in-doors, my visitors would squat down
on the frkhias or soft woollen mats, watching the
sparks with one eye and my slightest movement
GOOD MANNERS OF ARAB CHILDREN 191
with the other. Happy hours they were, peaceful
hours we spent together, after their early arrival
in the morning, with their formal greetings, their
mouths full of honeyed words, their hands full
of presents, such as a white pigeon with shrivelled
claws, a basket of dates, an orange the leader
of some caravan had given them, all pretty dis-
interested little attentions, amounting indeed almost
to homage done to the Rumiya, whom the Sidi
their father had ordered them to honour.
Little by little my young guests, whether they
belonged to the sedentary or the nomad tribes,
revealed to me the gradual development of the
Saharian character. Dear little birds of the
Desert, solemn little parrots that they were, each
replying mechanically to my question :
" Wilt thou return to-morrow ? "
" Yes, if it please Allah ! "
Not one of them was ever guilty of a slip, even
the Baby Aisha-S'rira when tossed up in the air
in my arms never winced, but the instant the
door was shut, or I went away for a minute, what
a hubbub there was, what shouts of merry
laughter, what a rapid exchange of opinions,
exclamations of wonder and admiration, now that
they were no longer constrained to moderation by
courtesy or by my august presence !
In the Sahara you must be at least fifteen years
old for it to be permissible to laugh before anyone.
192 BIRTH AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
To be serious is everything. The greatest
compliment one Arab mother can pay to another,
about some httle Fatma of eight years old, is
" Thank Allah, who has saved her from ever
laughing ! "
But they make up for all this enforced solemnity
when they are alone with their intimate friends, and
no mistake.
At about ten or eleven years old, the little Arab
girl begins to assume the important airs and graces
of a woman. She is not yet very fully developed,
and she is not very intelligent, but she observes
that the old women of the dawar have to do all
the household work. She sees them carrying the
children about, furling and unfurling the tents,
following the caravan on foot, with heavy bundles
on their shoulders, when the family moves from
one place to another, whilst the young women
lounge lazily in the basstir or big palanquin,
covered with fringed drapery, and perched upon
the hump of the finest of the camels. She knows
full well the value of the life just about to begin
for her. She will have a husband, and a dowry
will be given to her. She will receive the most
beautiful jewels, and a veil spangled with gold.
The guns will be fired in her honour on her
o
wedding day. She will be the mistress of the
tent during the many absences of her husband.
She feels all this instinctively, the future
HAPPY ANTICIPATIONS.
>93
downfall from her high estate, though she is
scarcely conscious of it, really adding piquancy
to her anticipations of the glory awaiting her. She
is not afraid of the conjugal tyranny she has heard
about. She knows that the Arab husbands very
seldom strike their wives hard enough to hurt them,
unless they are in fault. Her beauty and her
tact, she feels certain, will make her husband kind
to her and secure her happiness. You may be
very sure that she has already noted and exagge-
rated the effect of her dark eyes and graceful move-
ments on the men of the dawar, for the women
of the nomad tribes are allowed to go about the
dawar without veils. Indeed, most of them own
no veils, which prevents them from venturing
into towns. As they cannot wear veils they
194 BIRTH AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
hide themselves altogether from any but their
own people.
All the admiring glances she has seen, all that
she knows of the happy triumphs of her friends
who have become brides, give the maiden of the
dawar something of the scornful pride, the self-
absorbed egotism, of a young queen.
She will enjoy one brief season of bloom, all
too brief, indeed, but full of intense rapture.
Her mother humours her, her father spoils her —
as long as she treats him with respect. Now
and then she spins a little white wool, chattering
with her friends the while. That is all anyone
expects of her. Sometimes she is as full of life and
motion as a young starling, then again she sits
moping and silent like a nightingale in a cage. She
never for a moment forgets that she is a valuable
piece of property, a glory which will last one or two,
more rarely three, years only. Presently some
old man asks her hand in marriage, her pride
grows all the greater, but the happiness of her
life is at an end.
As I have just hinted, the first husband of a
young girl, of from twelve to fourteen years old,
is an old, or at least a middle-ao-ed man, whereas
a repudiated wife, who has, of course, lost the first
bloom of her beauty, often marries a boy of from
thirteen to fifteen years old, which is, no doubt,
one way of making the balance even. Marriage
. PRELIMINARIES OF MARRIAGE. 195
between two young people is, however, quite
the exception. A married woman of a certain
age is always either a widow, a repudiated, or
a divorced wife, the word divorced being used
when the marriage has been annulled in favour
of the woman — a thing of very rare occurrence.
Celibacy is quite unknown amongst the Arab
women ; every girl of sixteen or eighteen is
married.
Whatever may be the age of the husband,
the wedding ceremony is very much the same.
The aspirant to the hand of a beautiful young
woman sends his mother or some other elderly
female emissary to pave the way for him by
visits and flattery.
"Oh, fair one! oh, cherished one! oh, daughter
of gold!" begins the go-between. "Oh, virtuous
mother, thy family seems to be under the special
blessing of Allah ! " and so on.
Then when they return to their employer,
these messengers give him an account of the
prosperity of the house they have visited, the
talents of the young lady, how well she can cook,
spin, etc. ; her health, her beauty. If the fiature
mother-in-law is the ambassadress, she shows her-
self punctilious and difficult to please, whereas
more distant relations, friends, or paid emissaries,
are very ready with their praise. Are not all
women passionately fond of match-making ? Can
ig6
BIRTH AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
there be anything more delightful than to contribute
to the happiness of others, even if things do turn
out all wrong sometimes ?
"You should just see her," says the go-between ;
" why, you might take her for a masterpiece
turned out by some skilful jeweller. Her teeth
are as white as milk, her lips are like the
crimson flower of Paradise. Her face will charm
you as does the moon in all her beauty, her
supple, rounded limbs are like some vigorous tree
which will yield much fruit. Truly she is the
daughter of the star of the morning, and her
eyes themselves are brilliant stars."
It is related that on one occasion a go-between
who, from the best of motives, had neglected to
state that a certain Zorah squinted more than is
consistent with beauty, replied to the remonstrances
A GREAT SURPRISE. 197
of the husband she had led to marry the poor
girl:
" By Allah, who created thee, I told thee the
truth. Remember, oh, Mabruk, oh, man, the
words of my mouth! It is not the habit of my
tongue to lie. Did I tell thee that she did not
squint ? Did I not, on the contrary, warn thee
that a surprise, a great surprise, awaited thee, to
which the astonishment of Solomon would be but
small ? "
This refers to the intense surprise of Solomon
when he saw the thousand camels given to him by
Allah come out of the sea. The story goes that
the miracle had such an effect upon him that
for whole days he forgot to pray, and allowed a
jinn to steal his throne.
In a dawar, however, the husband-elect generally
knows what he has to expect, and how much to
believe of what the go-betweens tell him, for, as
mentioned above, the girls go about with uncovered
faces. Customs are very different in the kusur,
for there he will not have had a chance of seeing
the features of the bride since she was quite a
child She may have changed greatly in the
interval. Even in the dawar it as well to be
cautious, for, of course, it is only the girls of his
own particular tribe and encampment that the
suitor has seen ; he never gets a glimpse of
those of any other tribe. For instance : " Kebir-
igS BIRTH AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
Mohammed-ben-Naceur of the Aulad-ben-Rir tribe
has a beautiful daughter. Shall I enquire about
her? The father is well off, but will she make
a wife I can put up with ? "
Serious questions these, and the poor candidate
for matrimony has nothing to rely on but the
poetic rhapsodies of the matrons he employs or
the severe disparagement of his mother, who
wants a daughter-in-law who will be a nonentity.
He never dreams of going to the house of the
family he wishes to enter, to do so would be a
very great breach of etiquette. Except amongst
the Shaanba of El Golea, where a suitor is
allowed to take a furtive — but, at the same time,
what may be called an official — look at a young
girl, he has no means of seeing her ; and bear-
ing in mind the number of Arab communities
in the desert, this is of course a very rare ex-
ception. So strict is the etiquette observed where
marriage is in question, that even cousins who
have been brought up together are separated
directly there is any question of their union, which
is arranged without consulting them by the parents
_ on both sides. The two young people suddenly
begin to pretend that they do not know each other,
and those about them eagerly keep up the diplo-
matic deception: "Let us walk in the straight
path and avoid all appearance of evil." (May
our Lord Mohammed preserve us from it, may
AN INDESCRIBABLE DISCUSSION. 199
Allah pour out on him and his the divine benedic-
tion. Amen ! )
The husband is supposed to look upon his wife
for the first time after marriage, but there are such
things as sham first looks, just as there are sham
orange blossoms.
In spite of all the activity of the old women in
the matter, the affair of a marriao-e is not much
advanced by their efforts. The real business of
negotiation does not begin until the solemn day
when the father of Mabruk goes to call on the
father of Zorah.
Now ensues a perfectly indescribable discussion,
not exactly comic, but terribly complicated. Pru-
dence on the one side, vanity on the other, lead to
endless debates, the dignified courtesy with which
they are carried on concealing the intense excite-
ment of those concerned in them, when the question
of money comes to the fore. To fix the amount
of the dowry, which to a certain extent repre-
sents the price of the woman, to argue about the
cost of the trousseau, the value of the jewels
brought by the bride, and all without yielding
anything or showing any temper — what a business
it is ! But at last it is finished, and in the presence
of Allah, who never sleeps and never dreams,
the troth is plighted, Mabruk and Zorah are
engaged.
Zorah is not supposed to know anything about
200 BIRTH AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
what is going on until all is arranged. You will
easily guess, however, that she is not so ignorant
as she seems. Still, there is all the desirable
confusion about her well-assumed surprise when
her father says to her one evening, " Oh, my
daughter, if it please Allah, thou wilt be the
wife of Mabruk-ben-Said. He is a sensible
man, thou wilt walk by his side in the path of the
All-merciful."
After listening to what her father says, Zorah
begins to cry, to pout and to protest, as is the
fashion, but all the time she is really exultant, her
married friends cannot look down upon her any
longer, and those who are still unmarried will gnash
their teeth with rage and envy. Oh joy, oh
delight! And they are preparing the maliffas and
countless ottgayas. And the grandmothers are
weaving the rugs for the nuptial couch. And the
mother is going to the nearest jeweller, to whom
all the nomads flock on such an occasion as this.
The father, meanwhile, is engaged in the more
prosaic task of choosing the sheep which is to be
roasted for the feast to be given to the men of the
dawar.
Oh joy, oh delight ! How the faithful will
gloat over the full meal prepared for them, how
they will eat it to the cheerful sound of the firing
which will gladden their ears and charm their
hearts.
EIGHT DAYS OF FREEDOM. 201
The weeks pass on full of feverish excitement.
Every afternoon crowds of young friends invade
the tent or house of the betrothed, they have come
to laugh and dance, to handle the new stuffs, to
drink tea, and to play at cards on the sly in the
corners. Oh those wicked cards, how delightful
they are. Spanish ones first introduced from
Morocco, and which the caravan sokhrars get for
you for ardda zurji (twopence).
There is one very quaint custom peculiar to the
kusur which gives a piquant flavour to a very inno-
cent amusement. I refer to that known as steal-
ing henna, a bit of fun in which those who are to
be under the control of a master henceforth are
allowed to indulge in freely before they go into
the captivity of married life. Wearing old borrowed
garments stained and torn — for in the Sahara a
whole poem may be implied by tatters — wrapped
up in a dirty veil an old negress would despise,
the bride-elect is allowed to run about the town for
eight days, escorted by girls not yet old enough
to be shut up. Just imagine what this sudden
freedom means after two or three years of
seclusion ! It means more than a mere prank, it
means adventure with all its thrilling possibilities
of mischief
Off they go, the little party of fugitives, half
afraid of their own liberty, gliding along the grey
walls, disappearing in the dark, gloomy alleys.
202 BIRTH AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
The bride-elect leads the smallest children, whilst
the bigger ones form a kind of moving rampart, or
bodyguard to her. Though they laugh loud they
scream with terror, running away every now and
then, chirping like frightened sparrows. Then back
they all trot, knocking at the doors of their friends,
and even at those of strangers to them, in all the
merry abandonment of a masquerade. '' Hell -el-
Bab,'' "Open the door," they cry. '' Outna?''
"Who is there?" comes the reply from invisible
and anxious enquirers.
There is no answer, the knockers are wild with
delight.
But presently, unable to contain themselves, they
cry again : " Open the door, open the door, oh,
ye friends of Mohammed ! We are the stealers of
henna ! "
]\Iagic words, which open to the speakers the
most jealously closed doors. They are the stealers
of henna, no need to ask any more questions !
It is a little bride-elect and her escort ; shall we
refuse to give them the henna they have come
to steal ? And so the merry, noisy troop rushes
in and disperses in the winding passages of
the house, where the inquisitive looks of those in
the street cannot follow them.
Here they are, all together again in the small
court, where they are fussed over and petted.
Then, whilst the water is being heated to make
THE STEALERS OF HENNA.
203
the caouah, the mistress of the house takes from
its place near the fire the pot of plaited alfa in
which the henna is simmering. With a rag soaked
in the henna she dyes the bare hands and feet,
first of the bride-elect, then of the little " thieves "
with her. The application is repeated in every
house the " stealers " go to, and by the even-
ing the tender limbs thus anointed will be the
colour of cinnamon, a few days later the colour
of old leather. But what does it matter ? They
have all had a good laugh, a bit of fun, they have
been free ! Very often they remain all night, and
sleep on ihe rugs or frechias in some hospitable
house, and the hostess lets them share the evening
kouskous. " Allah iketter kherekT " May Allah
reward thee," or, more literally, " May Allah in-
crease thy wealth or thy happiness ! " they say
the next morning, after which they take their
204 BIRTH AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
departure, to resume their timid, furtive gliding
along the mud walls, their hurried flight through
the gloomy alleys, to knock at other closed doors
crying: "Open, open! we are the stealers of
henna ! "
On the eve of the wedding the house of the bride
is like a teeming hive of bees, from which all the
males have disappeared, for it is the fashion amongst
the men in the kusiir to ignore an approaching
marriage, and no one takes any notice of the
bridegroom. It is just the reverse in Northern
Algeria, as in Egypt and in Turkey, where he is
made a great fuss over. In a kasr the father of
the bride attends to his ordinary business with
affected nonchalance ; the bridegroom, wearing an
old burnous, goes with his friends to the cafe or
the promenade, in fact leads his usual dolce far
niente existence. If he is poor, he works in the
garden or attends to the camels, just as if nothing
was going to happen. It is only on the second
day of the wedding festivities that the men on
both sides meet at a bipf feast at which the women
do not appear.
Then all is changed in the dawar. The guns
are fired, and the revels of the young men begin ;
but not a man, not even the bridegroom, is allowed
to penetrate beneath the tent where the ahrossa,
or bride, is enduring being decked out with her
finery — no man, except the musicians, who are
AN UNFORTUNATE MARTYR. 205
scarcely worth mentioning, and the negroes, who
do not count at all.
Poor Zorah ! Unfortunate martyr! Whether
she squints or not, whether she be as frightful as
Shaitdn (the Demon) or as beautiful as an angel,
to-day she is just a piece of wood, an idol, to be
dressed, pushed, and carried about, in a word, to be
tortured. Judge for yourself! Her mother began
the proceedings in the morning by washing her head
— I mean literally, not figuratively — with a black
decoction full of little angular grains of some sort
which remain in the hair. On the wet hair, for
the mother does not dry it, is then poured a
quantity of rancid oil, perfumed with jasmine, a
scent the Prophet was fond of (" May Allah bless
thy family ! Amen ! ") The oil trickles down on
the water, the water drips under the oil. The
appearance of Zorah is becoming quite lamentable,
her beauty and grace are already being crushed
out of her.
*' May thy day be full of happiness ! May Allah
shower blessings upon thee ! " say the relations,
the inquisitive young girls and the old gossips,
who arrive one after the other, with white veils
completely hiding their precious gala costumes.
Zorah cannot offer them her hands, for they
are, alas ! completely swathed in linen. Yester-
day evening melted candle-grease was dropped
on to her fingers, and then over the grease
2o6 BIRTH AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
henna was plastered. You will understand the
reason for this torture of course ? When the
candle grease is removed presently, beautiful
pale patches will be left, if it can be managed
at regular intervals, in the corrosive brown dye on
Zorah's fingers.
" By Allah ! How beautiful thou art ! "
Beautiful ! Zorah may be beautiful generally,
but she certainly is not so at this moment. How-
ever, her mother now begins to paint her, and
the musicians begin to blow upon their reithas
as an accompaniment to the gJnialla, singing an
epithalamium or nuptial song in praise of the
bride.
" She is the honey which men rejoice in,
The young girls have looked on her and called her blessed,
She has won the praise of the pious and virtuous women."
The reithas go on playing, the noise goes
on increasing. Zorah, beneath her heavy white
burden, feels her mother putting two dashes
of rouge on her cheeks, not to speak of the saffron
smeared on her lips, the painting of her forehead,
the darkening of her eyes with kohl. The women
crowd about her as she sits on a chest to be decked
with her bridal array, others keep arriving till the
court and the small rooms are full to overflowinof.
Poor Zorah is squeezed, pinched and pushed about,
everybody wants to touch her, to add a bit of
A FAINTING BRIBE. 207
rouge here, a touch of henna there, a little of
anything, it doesn't matter what.
" It is she, even she who will be a fruitful wife,
She, the chaste one, who will be the joy of her husband."
continues the nuptial song, and all the women
cry in chorus, " Yu ! Yu ! Yu ! Yu ! Yu ! Yu !
Yu!" These frantic cries of " Yu ! Yu ! Yu ! "
go on, over every fresh article of toilette put on
to poor Zorah, and on top of all her ordinary
garments and all her festive array, no less than
seventeen veils are piled up, one after the other,
first a silk one, then a thick muslin one, alternately.
Each veil is ceremoniously and slowly draped,
to the accompaniment of shrill cries of " Yu !
Yu ! Yu ! " Zorah is beginning to be stifled.
Every one of her relations wishes to pin on
one veil. The poor martyr, for the bride-elect
truly is a martyr, is shaken about, and pinched,
whilst she gasps for air. Yu ! Yu ! Yu !
At last, on the top of the edifice the mother
places a crown of gold, necklaces, chains,
brooches, ear-rings and chains of a formidable
weight. Yu ! Yu ! Yu ! Zorah is fainting, but
nobody takes any notice of that, her sighs of
distress are drowned in the noise made by the
women, the nuptial song, and the nasal sound of
the reithas.
2o8 BIRTH AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
The confusion is now at its height. The crowd
is no longer a meeting of acquaintances ; it is
a seethine, indistino-uishable mass of feminine
humanity, over which a big negro now begins with
uplifted arms, to sprinkle perfume. Then from the
terrace above grain and kouskous are flung down,
as symbols of abundance and fertility, the women
greeting each fresh shower with their endless Yu !
Yu ! Yu !
" May blessings be upon thee, oh Zorah, may
the benediction of Allah be with thee ! "
"Yu ! Yu! Yu! Yu! Yu! Yu!"
I would not advise any one from Paris to
venture into the awful crowd, from which rises
up a mixed and oppressive odour of musk, cloves,
and flesh and blood. A fainting fit would be
THE BRIDE STARTS ON HER MULE. 209
sure to be the result, unless months of previous
training have been gone through, and even
then a bottle of very strong salts would be
necessary. Poor Zorah, however, has to hold
out in spite of her seventeen veils, one on top
of the other. But even now it is not enough.
She is pinched to bring her back to the exigen-
cies of the occasion, and then a heavy covering
is put on over all the veils, on top of which
is placed a carpet. Thus swathed beyond recog-
nition, the bundle is hoisted on to the shoulders
of the negro, whose duty it is to place the bride
on the mule which is to take her to the house of
the bridegroom. Amongst the nomads a camel
with a bassur, or palanquin, replaces the mule,
but the ceremonial remains much the same in
both cases.
Well, there is poor Zorah on the back of a
snorting mule, and astride behind her is a negress,
whose business it is to keep the bundle from
overbalancing itself, and tumbling off. The
procession starts at last, the mule leading the way,
whilst all the women follow on foot, with hastily-
adjusted veils, keeping up their never-ending
"Yu! Yu ! Yu ! " whilst a negress on another
mule, also astride — it is the fashion in these parts
— brings up the rear. Instead of the package
containing the bride-elect, this second negress
has a big bundle of frechias and cushions to look
2IO BIRTH AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
after, on the top of which is a chest, containing
the trousseau, the wedding presents and the nuptial
bed.
Five or six hours have now passed by. It is
evening, just before the prayer of 'Asha. The
female friends and relations of the bridegroom
have just left his house, each carrying her
diadem carefully wrapped in a handkerchief
And where is Zorah ? She is reclining between
her mother-in-law and her sisters-in-law, stupefied
with fatigue, in all the reaction of the quiet
pause which has succeeded the noise and
confusion.
The men have not yet reappeared, neither has
the bridegroom put in an appearance ; for in this
land of gentle manners there is none of the coarse-
ness so often described by travellers amongst the
Arabs of the Northern districts. In the South
the father of the bride, however poor, protects his
daughter carefully from any roughness, and there
is none of the traffic in young girls which is a
disgrace elsewhere. It is the father of the bride,
too, who meets most of the expenses of the wedding,
giving, in clothes, jewels, and rugs, more than
equivalent for the modest dowry paid by the
bridegroom.
There is a delicacy, or apparent delicacy at
least, observed in dealing with everything con-
nected with marriage ; and, without being
ZORAH BEGINS TO RECOVER. 211
exactly what would be called prudish in Europe,
the people of Southern Algeria have an almost
exaggerated idea of what we understand by-
modesty.
But let us return to our Zorah. She has re-
covered a little now from her tremors and the
sufferings she endured during her toilette. She
will have supper in the evening with the women
of her husband's family, then she will be led
into the nuptial chamber, a very simple little
retreat, and there, amongst the feather pillows,
14*
212 BIRTH AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
she will await with trembling limbs and beat-
ing heart the coming of Mabruk, who has re-
mained away all day, and will steal into his home
through the court like a thief. Let us draw a
veil over the privacy of bride and bridegroom.
The next night, and the next, Mabruk will
steal in in a similar way, then he will resume
his ordinary mode of life, and at the end of
eight days, when the time of his wife is no
longer entirely taken up by receiving the visits
of her friends and playing with them, he will
feel as if he had been married for eight cen-
turies. Presently (unless he and Zorah are too
young and inexperienced to keep house) he
will take his bride to live with some old female
relation in a little separate home, or in a new
tent pitched in the dawar to which his parents
belono-.
For a year, sometimes for two years, the
bride will not do any work. For that time she
remains en toilette from the morning to the even-
ing ; she is queen for the time being, giving herself
airs and preening herself like some young turtle-
dove. She is still the bride, and every one speaks
of her as the ahrossa.
I know that all too often her happiness is only
apparent, and there is rarely much security about
it when it is real. I know, too, what a reputa-
tion for tyranny mothers-in-law have in the
A CHARMING CUSTOM. 213
Sahara ; but for all that, is it not a charming
custom thus to guard the precocious young
flower, to try to arrest for a moment the in-
evitable blight which the wear and tear of life
must bring with it ?
THE VERB ''TO DIVORCE:' 215
CHAPTER XII.
DIVORCE IN THE SAHARA.
In the Sahara the terrible old verb, divorce, which
in Europe means the destruction of family happiness,
but there its best protection, is conjugated in a
very simple manner. How shall I translate that
conjugation ? Perhaps the following rendering will
give a true idea of the position, "/want another
wife, t/iozL wouldest be in the way, because she has
a negress, thou wouldest not be wanted here to
wait on her, so we will part ; yoic will take back
your child and t/iey, everybody, will be satisfied."
As for the parents of the fair one, or the ex-fair
one, to be more accurate, to whom the second
person plural refers, they will protest because they
have no wish to have to refund the half-dowry paid
by their son-in law, but would prefer that he should
have to pay it to them.
The bridegroom has, however, generally arranged
some pretext for divorce before he ventures to moot
the question. The fact is customs in Southern
Algeria, the Algeria of the vast stretches of sand,
2i6 DIVORCE IN THE SAHARA.
of the simoon and the fevers it brings in its track,
have still all the old simplicity of patriarchal days ;
nothing has really changed since the time of
Mohammed, and Mohammed himself did not modify
in the very smallest degree the ways of the nomads,
descendants of those who had kept the flocks of
Babylon and of Tyre, who followed his standard
into Africa from Arabia, Chaldaea, Mesopotamia
and Bactria.
Descendants of shepherds, and shepherds them-
selves — whether they be called Larbaa, Said
Otba, Shaanba - Berasga, or Shaanba - bou - Ruba,
they are all used to wandering for long distances
in search of pasturage, they are all brave and
sturdy, they all dress and live simply, they all
have the same — or very similar — divorce customs,
and all are equally ingenious in proving the
infidelity of their wives, or, to use the Arab
expression, the violation of their tents, if it suits
their purpose.
The infidelity proved — or said to be proved —
Zorah, Fatma, or Aisha is sent back to her parents,
or given to the man she has preferred. However
that may be, the husband loses nothing ; at least,
he loses no money, for he does not have to pay
the full dowry for a wife who has been unfaithful.
Moreover, he gets back the instalment already
given to the bride's parents, or, if they are unable
to pay it, he tries to get it out of the new husband.
A REPUDIATED WIFE.
ASIATICS OF LONG DESCENT. 219
We must not judge these husbands and wives
of the Sahara too severely ; they act up to their
lights, and there are many things tolerated in
European society which will bear investigation
far less than these Arab customs. We can never
hope to understand thoroughly natures so unlike
our own. In course of time we shall probably
introduce amongst them certain European bad
habits and vices, but we shall remain as ignorant
as ever of what they really are. They are Asiatics
dating their descent back for many thousand years ;
Asiatics transferred to the sterile, arid soil of
Africa. How can they help being fickle, crafty,
and treacherous ? Should we judge prehistoric
animals seriously, enquiring rigidly into their
honesty or their morality ? Of course not.
Neither then should we apply modern European
standards to these survivals of a world gone by.
It is life in the tent, with all its quaint, child-
like customs, all its old-world superstitions, which
is the foundation of society amongst the nomads,
whether they belong to the Wady-Seb-Seb, the
Wady-N'ca, or any other Wady. First the tent,
then the dawar, and then the tribe. Above the
tribe absolutely nothing in the way of organization,
except the foreign officials — Turk or Riimi as
the case may be — whom Allah has permitted to
conquer the world provisionally, as a punishment
for the sins of men.
220 DIVORCE IN THE SAHARA.
- Many families may be grouped under the
authority of what may be called a tent chieftain ;
families related to, or allied with, that chieftain,
such as those of the son-in-law, brother-in-law,
or nephew, but it often happens that the household
— or, to coin a word, the tenthold — consists of
the family strictly so called, that is to say, of
the husband and his wife or wives, his young
sisters, an old widowed grandmother, and a negress,
whose little ones, black or brown, play about in
the sand with the better cared-for children of paler
complexions.
All these niiitcJiatcJuis, as the Arabs call them,
are, as a rule, brothers and sisters — on the father's
side at least. " Happy," says Allah, " are the
faithful who content themselves with their wives
and the negresses they have won with their right
arm (that is to say, those they have honestly bought
or obtained in war), for they will never be re-
proved." Four wives and as many black servants
as they like, are all that are allowed to a good
Mussulman. But, as I have already had occasion
to remark, most Arabs are content with One wife ;
few take two, fewer still three, and it is a very
rare thing for any one to have four. Except
amongst the very wealthy members of a tribe,
there is only one legitimate wife in a family. But
a nomad who has never had more than one wufe
at a time will, perhaps, have had as many as
FEELINGS OF A DIVORCED WIFE. 221
fifteen in the course of his life, one replacing, or
rather driving out, another, according to the fancy
of the husband, or the indiscretions brought home
to the wife for the time being.
Now, what is the state of mind, in view of
approaching divorce, of the woman to whom the
Koran refuses so much, rarely allowing her any
share in the life beyond the grave, and only then
in the company of her husband (which of the
successive husbands lived with on earth the sacred
book does not say) ? Does she rebel against her
fate ? What does she think and feel, especially
when the moment comes for leaving the tent of
her husband and returning to that of her father,
who, summoned in all haste, has come to fetch
her, the mute reproach in his eyes seeming but
the earnest of other — less silent — reproaches to
come ?
This is what she feels :
When the verdict has been spoken, she cries,
she howls, she sobs, she tears her hair, and scratches
her face. What, leave the tent, become a repu-
diated wife — for she is only divorced when she is
the complaining party — leave the saucepan and the
kesskess or strainer in which she has so often
prepared the kouskous for happy evenings gone
by ? and the guecaa or big wooden mould, and the
hand-mill in which she has ground the flour so
many times, and with so much hard work. She
222 DIVORCE IN THE SAHARA.
rolls herself on the ground in her distress. What,
are the carpets and frdchias of which she has been
so proud to be hers no longer ; must her very
jewels be left behind ? the big bracelets, the
massive khalkhah or tinkling hair ornaments, the
ringing sound of which keeps vermin away, and
attracts the attention of admirers ? Oh, it is too
terrible ! Her heart is wruno: with ano-uish. Sud-
denly she starts up invoking the aid of Allah,
and of Sidi-Abd-el-Kader-el Jilani, the saint of
Bagdad. She begins to curse and to blaspheme.
She makes up the wildest excuses for her conduct
and fabricates the most unlikely stories. She
threatens to kill her husband, herself, their children,
if they have any, and when this is all over and
it generally lasts about two days, she quietly
mounts the camel or the mule which is to take her
NO LONGER A BRIDE. 223
back across the melancholy desert. She no longer
thinks of making up some fantastic story to turn
aside the wrath of the Sidi, her father, who escorts
her in a silence which bodes her no good, or to
make him believe that it is with her ex-husband,
not with her, that he should be angry.
At least she is free now, should opportunity
offer for another alliance, to choose for herself, a
woman who has once been married being allowed
to take any second husband she likes. The father's
authority is only absolute in the case of the first.
Before the drama of repudiation begins, however,
some years, certainly some months, of married life
have gone by, during which the husband and wife
have passed through various developments and
changes. First has come the traditional time
of idleness for the bride. Then Mohammed-ben-
Abder-Rahman sets about having his wife trained
to her household work. With Zorah his first wife,
or Graira his seventh, the same routine is gone
through. The grandmothers of the family have
already taught her to spin and weave, and she used
to play at doing a little work at home when her
mother was making a burnous or a carpet. Hitherto,
the preparation of the flour for the kouskous and
the suckling of the baby, if there is one, are all
she has had to do, but now she must take her share
in the daily work of the tent, which is light and easy
enough, if we compare it with that of the poor
224 DIVORCE IN THE SAHARA.
old Arab women, or even of that of many women
in the agricultural districts of Europe.
All the menial tasks, including the care of the
children, is done by the old women, but, in spite
of all that is said to the contrary, the men take
their full share in the really arduous work, and it
is often only the obstinacy of the aged women
themselves, which makes them undertake what is
too hard for them.
The wife will still find favour in the eyes of her
husband, or rather of her master, as long as she
can make herself pleasant to him, and he can take
a pride in her beauty, and is assured of her fidelity.
It must be remembered, however, that the woman
of the desert is not veiled, not sequestrated, not
even kept under any particular surveillance. She
talks freely with any of the men of the dawar, and
is careful and modest in her deportment when in
public. The only restriction is, that she is for-
bidden to allow a Rumi to approach her, and
will flee away at the sight of a foreigner, as if in
the greatest terror.
Now to what does the modesty of the women
of the dawar really amount ? What are the chances,
for instance, of the fidelity of Graira, the seventh
wife of Mohammed-ben- Abder- Rahman, chieftain
of the tent ?
Fidelity ! Half the time she does not know
what the word or the thing itself means. Probably
MASTER, MORALIST AND TEACHER. 225
when the dawar happened to be camped near a
zattia of merchants, her brothers may have learnt
certain principles of morality, and a few verses of
the Koran. But she herself, except for the short
prayer of the prescribed Surah, and one or two
invocations, knows absolutely nothing. In theory,
her husband ought to be wise and prudent for her.
He is the master, the moralist, the teacher of the
hearth. It is for him to inculcate the lessons re-
ceived from Allah by the Prophet.
" Tell the wives of the faithful to lower their
eyes, and observe continence, to allow only their
outer ornaments to be seen, to cover their breasts
with a veil ! Let them not move their feet so as
to display the hidden jewels {khalkhals) of their
ankles. Thus it will be more easy for them to
escape misconstruction and calumny."
With very rare exceptions, the husband does
not trouble to explain the sacred precepts to his
wife. He is content to issue his orders, and is
not very much surprised if they are disobeyed.
He does his share — not, perhaps half, nor a third
nor a quarter, where polygamy is indulged in —
gives his wife presents, and behaves courteously
to her when she is still new, and still beautiful.
After that, if he keeps her, he simply looks upon
her as a servant, and treats her kindly, never
molesting her in any way.
But we have left the modesty and fidelity of
15
226
DIVORCE IN THE SAHARA.
Graira very far behind. Her modesty then consists
in vaguely observing the precepts quoted above,
that is to say, she does not tinkle her anklets,
except when her husband is out of hearing, she
refastens her drapery when it comes undone, and
draws her oiigaya over her mouth and chin, when
l-j_^.-_..>.i5J«
in the presence of a stranger. Her fidelity consists
in yielding to every passing fancy, to being, in fact,
a natural young animal, who is surprised at nothing.
Naively she prays to the Sidi Abd-el-Kader, he
who breaks the hearts of the evil doers, the pious
lieutenant of Allah, to keep her husband,
Mohammed, from suspecting her, for she naively
CONFUSED IDEAS. 227
supposes that her guilt may be proved, even
if she is innocent, through the machinations of
Iblis (the devil), or of some malevolent jinn whom
she has unwittingly offended. She is equally
convinced that, if guilty, her innocence may
be triumphantly proved ; in fact, to her, guilt
is not guilt, nor innocence innocence ; it is all
a question of what her husband thinks.
15*
A DAY OF TRIUMPH. 229
CHAPTER XIII.
WARGLA, THE PEARL OF THE OASES.
Guarded, so to speak, by the encampments of
the great nomad tribes, Wargla, surnamed the
Pearl, and the Queen of the Oases, lies brown
and weary-looking, between the salt lake of the
mirage and the burning oasis, where grow the
stunted but fruitful palms for which the neighbour-
hood is so celebrated. Indeed, the Wargla oasis
alone owns something like a million and a half of
these trees, nine hundred thousand of which are
constantly watered ; for, to quote the saying of the
Sahara, they have their feet in the water, and their
heads in the fire. The annual yield of choice dates,
including the celebrated variety known as the
D eg let-en- Noitr, amounts to no less than 25,000
hundredweight.
Strange, mystic, mysterious town, whose sultans
owned no Lord but Allah, until the French, the
Rumis, came to it as conquerors.
On that day of triumph for the Riimis and
regret for the people of Wargla, some of the
230 THE PEARL OF THE OASIS.
former may have learnt the legendary origin of the
City of Roses, the Belle of the Desert, the Queen, '
the Pearl of Cities. I have noticed in the course
of my travels, that every very ancient community
has had, in popular report, some great man of
the past as a founder ; some splendid hero who
chose the site for himself out of all others,
the further mythical history of the place having
been evolved from the imagination of its in-
habitants.
Now in this case, it was Solomon, King of
Jerusalem, master of the winds and of the clouds,
Lord of the Spirits, who, out of the goodness of his
heart, undertook the task of building Wargla, or, at
least, of having it built by genii, jinns, and angels.
The city rose up suddenly, with the houses, the
streets, the walls, the very mosques of the present
day, and that, too, many centuries before the time
of Mohammed ! Yet more wonderful, by a supreme
miracle, one of the female angels who aided in
its construction still lives in one of the mosques,
immured by order of the King between the walls of
the minaret, there to act, whether she likes it or
not, as guardian of the town and protector of all,
the miserable or the happy, against the demon,
or Satan, whom they call Shaitdn.
During my stay in Wargla, I never was able
to bring myself to believe in its supernatural
origin. You may live there rocked in a dream
BILK IS, QUEEN OF SHEBA.
231
of a very Oriental, and yet essentially African,
nature, for the cooing of doves responds to the
sighing of distant flutes ; of an evening, too, when
from every closed door issue musty odours, and the
sound of gentle merriment is heard, you can fancy
yourself transported, not to Solomon's Palace, but
to the wretched little town, with its mud houses,
belonging to Bilkis,* Queen of Sheba, whom
* Bilkis is not named in the Bible, but only referred to in certain
Arab traditions, in which she is sometimes confused with Zenobia,
Queen of Palmyra. There is a story about the Queen of Sheba in
the Koran (Surah xxvii.— 20), but her name is not given. It is
probably to this story that the author refers. — Trans.
232 THE PEARL OF THE OASIS.
the Jewish monarch was, it is said, so fond of
visiting.
History gives us very little information about
Wargla. The sedentary race occupying the dis-
trict at the time of Sallust, whom he calls the
Garamantes, were of a very different stock to the
present inhabitants. An old manuscript refers to
Wargla as a flourishing city in the year 937 of
the Christian era, famous for its markets, its public
buildings, and its schools, in which many learned
tolbas were trained. It reached the culminatinpf
point of its prosperity in the year 1238 (626 of
Hegira), when a certain mosque, now in ruins, was
built under the auspices of Abu-Zacharia. This
was the great epoch, the culminating point, of
Wargla's glory, but every apogee is of necessity
followed by decadence. During the ten years pre-
ceding the French conquest, or, rather annexation,
of 1882, Wargla sank to the very lowest depth
of decrepitude. Since then there has been some-
thing of a revival ; and, submitting with a good
grace to French authority, the people do not seem
to regret the Sultans of whom they were once so
proud. Truth to tell, they love strict government,
and are not in the least fitted for freedom.
The descendants of the ancient Garamantes are
now called the Ghuara, and occupy the Wady-Mia
with the whole of the basin of the Wady-R'ir, as
far as beyond Tuggurt.
THE PEOPLE OF WARGLA. 233
Although they are generally classed with the
Berbers, they really preserve almost unchanged
the typical Hindu peculiarities they brought with
them from the south, when, some five or six
centuries before the Arabs, they came to settle in
these torrid deserts. Thin but not emaciated,
well-made but not robust, and with a very
characteristic clear-brown complexion, those, es-
pecially the men, who are of pure descent unmixed
with negro blood, have regular features, and are
■often very handsome. The faces of the women
are not so pleasing, but they have charming
figures ; and, although their waists are sometimes
a little too long, the modelling of the bust
and of the limbs leaves nothing to find fault
with.
At the risk of being laughed at for quoting
myself, I must insert here a sentence from
another book of mine, describing a passing pro-
cession :
" Draped in their red or green veils were old
and young women. The latter wore their hair
in curls falling right over their jet-black eyes,
and their gleaming teeth were whiter than the
cowries on their foreheads, and their anklets
jingled against each other in a most seductive
way, whilst their perfect arms held in place the
transparent drapery swathing their mobile limbs.
These were brunettes, lovely young brunettes, for
234 THE PEARL OF THE OASIS.
whom admirers of complexions like theirs com-
pose love songs :
" ' She is like the black date upon its stem,
Her lips are as red as the wax of a gem. ' "
The women thus lauded are intelligent, and
their frank and lively natures singularly combine
playfulness and love of pleasure with common sense.
I remember with what pride they used to shew
me their rooms when I paid them a visit. Dark,
gloomy little apartments ranged round a small court
ot beaten earth, in each of which certain primi-
tive and pathetic efforts had been made to make
things comfortable. Instead of sleeping on the
ground as the Arab women do, they use couches,
spreading frechias, or rugs, over quite springy
mattresses made of palm-stems. On the crumbling
walls they stretch pieces of stuff, and against this
background they arrange in symmetrical order,
glasses, plates, cups, strings of beads, etc., which
they have bought from caravans ; precious treasures,
carefully hung up and daily thoroughly dusted. I
do not quite know why, but I was infinitely touched
by finding amongst these simple children of the
Desert these ideas of Art drapery and decorative
knick-knacks.
They did not say to me here : " Thou art our
sister," but they cried: "Oh, how glad we are ta
THE GHUARA WOMEN. 235
see thee ! What a pleasure ! Praised be Allah ! "
This was just as gushing, but it seemed to me
more sincere, than the oreetino-s at five-o'clock tea
o o
between European ladies. These Ghuara women
were modestly proud of knowing how to speak
Arabic, which is so different from their own
language. Evidently they had some idea of what
culture means, of using several different words to
express the same meaning, and their intellects are
certainly superior to those of their husbands or
their brothers.
Very peaceable and free is their life. They spin
and weave a little after their household work is
done, and in every home the wife is queen, for
there is no polygamy here. They go out when
they like, and their dignified bearing keeps their
fellow-countrymen and foreigners alike at a distance.
They are not a prey to the silly fears of the
Mozabite women ; and different, indeed, was the
treatment received here to that accorded to us
by the inhospitable people of the Wady M'zab,
where my young attendant, Miloud-ben-Ch'tiui, was
always banished outside the door. Here the child
became the pet and plaything of my hostesses,
and was charged, from five o'clock in the morning
till the evening, with constant complicated messages
and bunches of roses for me.
I alluded above to the love of amusement
amongst the Ghuara. It is indeed very great,
236 THE PEARL OF THE OASIS.
and in every alley the sound of the tambourines
is constantly heard. Now a procession files along
to the accompaniment of rhythmic song, now some
pious offering is to be made, or a fete is suddenly
improvised, or again, some invalid suffering from
an obstinate headache, tries what may be called
the dancing cure {ijioidet-er-rass).
Some explanation of the dancing cure seems
called for here. When a woman is affiicted with
sick headache, she easily gets her husband to let
her have the benefit of the moidet-er-rass, for
which he will pay the singers, but of which he
himself, poor man, will hear and see nothing, for
the noisy meeting is attended by women alone.
The husband's consent secured, the friends of the
sufferer are summoned in haste, generally in the
evening, or sometimes even in the middle of the
night. Friends bring their friends, and these
friends in their turn their acquaintances, till a
dense crowd is assembled of women, with brown
complexions, their black hair carefully curled and
decked with little blue beads, their figures swathed
in sombre-hued veils.
The musicians are led by their gJmalla, or
improvisatrice, doctress or divineress ; and very
interesting did I find the female soothsayers or
ghuallas with whom I became acquainted. I must
introduce you specially to one of them, the
attenuated Miluda, whose skill in various direc-
A MOULET-ER-RASS.
237
tions, as a letter of blood and in applying French
lettuce soap internally, has won for her a great
reputation.
But I must return to our moidet-er-rass ; the
gJmallay Miluda herself, if you like, begins by
reciting a long incantation. Then, whilst the
assembled women sing a hymn in chorus, she
burns a quantity of benzoin under the very nose
of the patient. Rrrran, rrrran, rrrran, go the
tambourines all the time. The singers redouble
their efforts, the smoke from the benzoin rises up
from an earthenware pan. At last, when the
supplications and invocations are over, when the
invalid is absolutely suffocated with the thick
fumes of the burning resin, two of her com-
panions approach her gently, and, still gently,
238 THE PEARL OF THE OASIS.
raise her up by the arms and make her dance,
dance, dance, dance — madly, distractedly, — amongst
all the other dancers, whilst the tambourines
continue their ceaseless Rrrran, rrrran, rrrran.
" Yes ; dance, dance, sufferer, dance for hour upon
'hour ; dance, the exercise will relieve the con-
gestion of thy brain ; " and again rings out the
strident chant, to the persistent Rrrran, rrrran,
rrrran of the tambourines.
The fact is, absurd as it may sound, the invalid
always is quite well again the next morning, cured
by the triple force of the dancing, the prayer, and
the benzoin. We can but bow — and dance — to
such a result as this !
Of course, no one dreams of depriving an invalid
of the benefits of the inoidet-e7'-rass ! Then there
are other impromptu amusements, not to speak
of the wedding festivities, which are shared in by
every one in the town, for all the marriages are
solemnized on the same day, once a year. The
bridegrooms and their escorts of men march jauntily
along on one side of the street to the sound of in-
struments of music, whilst the brides with their
following of women walk in procession on the other,
their supple limbs moving in unison and their
anklets tinkling, as they trip along on their dainty
feet. Draped in sombre-coloured veils, with their
heads completely swathed in silk handkerchiefs,
the little newly-married wives look like mysterious
STRANGE MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.
239
phantoms, and the sharp flo_n«flon of the reitha, or
clarionet, is more impressive than cheerful. Truly,
it is a strange spectacle, this long procession, which
is repeated for seven consecutive days, winding
through all the streets and squares of the town,
none of those taking part in it ever showing any
failure of courage or of enthusiasm.
Imagine what must be the condition of the
delicate brides, when at last the fetes and the
dancing are over and they sink down, half-dead
with fatigue, with bruised and weary limbs.
The expression " innocent pleasure " seems
hardly admissible here, for the over-fatigue does
positive harm to health. But there is nothing
immoral about any of the Ghuara customs, and
it is rare indeed for a woman belonging to this race
to be guilty of an indiscretion. In fact, this
240 THE PEARL OF THE DESERT.
pastoral land is a true Arcadia, in which the men,
as well as the women, lead pure and simple
lives.
The stronger sex does not disdain impromptu
dancing, and of an evening, at the cross roads
and in the squares, you may see a very good
imitation of the dances of the Ghuara women,
or of those indulged in by the Tuareg and
Shaanba warriors elsewhere. The sharp clicking
of the metal castanets is accompanied by the
beating of what is called a tar (a sort of large
chest), harmonious singing, long drawn out and
rapid notes, mingled with the plaintive sighing
of solos on the flute from the distance, all combine
to produce the wild seductive charm characteristic
of Wargla.
Somewhat similar is the effect, as the corner
of some alley is turned, of the intermittent
light from the torches of pine wood, bringing into
vivid but brief relief the details of the strange
scene ; fit symbol, in its transient radiance, of this
Ghuara town, and the sudden fits of gaiety of its
inhabitants, the gaiety of a gentle-mannered people,
which, however, becomes just now and then some-
thing like folly, if not madness. This is especially
the case in the yearly saturnalia, when the men run
about the streets stark naked (an extraordinary
proceeding amongst the Arabs, who are generally
so very modest), smeared with pitch and wild
THE MARKET PLACE OF WARGLA. 241
with excitement, flinging for one evening all
restraint to the winds.
The next morning, however, they are back again
in the oasis gardens, watering the palms, and
cultivating the grain. Artesian wells, which they
owe to their predecessors, the Garamantes, and the
secret of the borino- of which has never been dis-
covered, provide them with a fairly good supply of
water. And very considerable would be the harvest,
or rather the profit, they would reap, if the greater
portion did not go to the owners of the soil,
either Mozabites or wealthy nomads, of whom
the Ghuara are only the khanimes, that is to say,
the farmers, who receive but a fifth part of the
yield of the palms.
The chief nomad tribes who encamp about
Wargla include the Aulad-ben-Said and Aulad-
Sma'il, the Shaanba, the M'khadma, the Beni-
Thur, and the Said-Otba, representatives of all
of which may be seen mingling with the
brown-skinned Ghuara in the market-place, a
large quadrilateral enclosure of arcades, with a
monument in the centre. The four massive doors
are closed every evening at the same time as the
posterns in the walls of the city. The goods
for sale in this market, are exposed in clumsy stalls,
which swarm with flies ; horrible creatures, of an
infinite variety, all tenacious of their prey, forming
with scorpions and fevers the chief scourges of
16
242
THE PEARL OF THE OASIS.
the country. Nothing and nobody is free from
these persistent pests, which interrupt without
ceremony the discussions going on in the shops,
or near the tellis, as the loads of dates are called.
Prayers are offered up near the shambles, where the
camels are killed, and the flies disturb even the
surgical operations, which are all performed in the
market ; for the barber-surgeons co-operate in the
treatment of patients with Miluda, and other female
soothsayers, in the outlying portions of it. There
people are bled cora^n popidi ; gashes are made
behind the ear, a prophetic oration is pronounced over
QUAINT COVERED-IN ALLEYS. 243
the wounds (the more incomprehensible it is, the more
efficacious it is supposed to be), and behold ! you
are cured, ready to dance, to beat yourself about
and to hold forth eloquently amongst the old cronies
in the covered-in alleys of the villages.
Very extraordinary are these arched - over
thoroughfares in the hamlets, in the neighbourhood
of Wargla, such as Ruissat and Chott-el-Hajaja.
They are met with even as far away as Tuggurt,
and they are so pitch dark that the doors opening
out of them are rather felt than seen. Here and
there these passages widen sufficiently to enclose
low blocks of masonry, used either as couches for
taking siestas, or as seats for a friendly chat with
a neighbour after a nap. At intervals where the
alleys meet there are openings in the roofs, through
which falls a dash of sunshine, making the surround-
ing gloom appear yet greater.
When the hour for prayer arrives, the old men
issue from the alleys to go to the mosques, respond-
ing to the musical summons of the muezzins, and
as soon as ever the door-ways and siesta benches
are vacated, the women come swarming out, and
hordes of children, in many-coloured garments,
rush forth from the mysterious recesses of the
houses. A babble of feminine chatter, less childish
here than amongst the Arab women, succeeds the
grave and reserved discourse of the grey-bearded
men, and the merry antics of the little Ghuara in
16*
244 THE PEARL OF THE DESERT.
their light raiment, the calm, dignified attitudes of
their white-robed grandfathers.
Presently, when prayers are over, the men
return, and the troops of children, with many a
shrill cry, run away again and disperse. Once
more the politics of the Southern Sahara, its
grotesque, its futile, and its complex ambitions,
are solemnly discussed in the close obscurity of
the hot, dark passages.
ORIGIN OF TUGGURT. 2^5
CHAPTER XIV.
FROM TUGGURT TO IN-SALAH.
If you draw a straight line on a map between
Tuggurt and In-Salah it will pass through many
deeply interesting districts, and if, coming from the
Sahara, you follow your straight line, you will
meet with examples of nearly every race of the
desert.
Tuggurt, a brown coloured town, inhabited by
Ghuara, is very like Wargla in appearance, but its
origin, or reputed origin, was very different. In this
case the founder was a woman, and a woman of no
very good reputation, who, having become rich
through her evil ways, wished to buy forgiveness for
her sins by building a refuge for the old and poor.
Only unfortunately — and this, as a certain Brother
Jean des Entommeures once said, is the gist of the
story, other women of bad reputation came to live
near the rescued poor who had now become rich,
owning land in the Sahara ; so rich, indeed, that the
money, dates, and kouskous so lightly come by were
equally readily given away. The foundress in her
246 FROM TUGGURT TO IN-SALAH.
despair tore the wool which represented her once
plentiful tresses, but to her objurgations the intruders
only replied : " Thou hast had thy turn, oh wealthy
one : now it is ours ! "
At last the infant city, to which the very scandal
connected with it attracted merchants and players
of what the natives call kkrab'rab, fell into the
stronger hands of a warrior of the neighbourhood,
who began by turning out the inmates of the refuge
to take up his own abode in it, and finally married
its foundress to avoid any future disputes about
ownership. This wise warrior was the first Sultan
of Tuggurt, who reigned long, long before the Ben-
Jellab dynasty.
As we toiled wearily and painfully across the evil-
smelling c/wU and dunes of the Southern Sahara,
where the shifting sand gives away beneath the softly-
padded foot of the camel, I thought to myself that
perhaps I had not said quite enough about the
fassedett, as the professional beauties are called, in
my account of the women of the desert. It is a
painful subject, but no account of the people of the
Sahara would be complete without a few words
about it. To begin with, I must explain that it is
a mistake to suppose that the paint, the henna, and
the heavy golden ornaments, such as the Louis-d'or
and the hundred-franc pieces, worn by the. /assedeU,
are either the exclusive marks or the rewards of
their profession, for all these are ornaments affected
THE FASSEDETT OF THE SAHARA. 247
by married women on fete days. The unfortunate
girls have really no distinctive costume, nothing to
set them apart from their virtuous sisters, except per-
haps the ostrich feather they all sport. The fassedett
are often spoken of as Aulad-Nails, but that too is
a mistake, for many of the almehs, or dancers and
painted girls, whom men admire so much, do not
belong to that tribe. Whatever their right name,
however, I made up my mind to find out something
about these wearers of the heavy gold necklaces and
the diadems with the frontlets of smaller coins falling
almost to the eyebrows above the jet-black eyes.
Perhaps, as the attention I have given to them is so
entirely disinterested, I may have been able to get
a truer insight into their poor little souls than my
brothers of the sterner sex, and truth to tell, I have
found several of those souls, careless, frivolous and
unconscious of the tragic elements of their position,
though they be, not so very different from the
virtuous souls of many legal wives. They are typical
feminine souls of the race Mohammed knew so well ;
to the women of whom he denied the possession of
a soul at all, in accordance with the orders of Allah
made known to him by the angel Jibril or Gabriel.
The fassedett do not form a caste apart. Some
few of them belong to the Aulad-Nail tribe, whose
ideas are emancipated, but these go to Biskra and
the Northern towns. Those who frequent the
Southern districts of the Sahara belong to nomad
248 FROM TUGGURT TO INS A L AH.
tribes, chiefly those of the kusur, and are the
children of poor parents.
Many of them are very intelligent, even versatile.
Children of the people, they retain their own mode
of speech, their attitudes and their gestures ; but they
can imitate to perfection the haughty dignity of
the wives of the Caids, the expression of the
mouth, the stiff pose of the head beneath the
weighty diadem, which was the envy of their
childhood. They are to the poor sokhrar, or camel
driver, sheep seller or spahi, the very embodiment
of beauty, and to the rich of luxury. To the
latter, of course, they are mere temporary play-
things in whom their admirers take pleasure, as
they do in the other luxuries their wealth enables
them to procure.
Such are the fassedett of Southern Sahara.
Look at one of them dancing who has not adopted
the coarse and ugly fashion introduced from Egypt
by the Turks. How mysterious is the twinkling
motion of her feet, alike sensual and modest, how
those feet seem to tremble with love, how im-
ploringly her little hands are raised to Heaven ;
with what sudden despair her wrists droop like
the broken stem of a flower ; or ap'ain, how she
poises with outspread arms as a bee hovers over
some blossom, and at last sinks exhausted to the
floor with limbs relaxed and trembling;. She is
to the dwellers in the extreme South of the Sahara,
^'<r^'."/~
A PROFESSIONAL DANCER.
A NAIVE REPLY. 251
the very idealization of the real, the realization of
the ideal.
The dancer herself is quite aware that her life
is sinful ; but she always hopes to wash away its
guilt when she retires, by making a pilgrimage, by
prayers, and by alms. Meanwhile, she seems
thoroughly to enjoy the lot she has chosen, and
does not mind the scorn of her married sisters in
the least. She has ambition enough to keep her
happy without any overstrain on her heart. One
day I asked a young debutante in a little Saharian
kasr if she was not vexed at owning so few jewels,
"Oh, no," she answered, simply, "that does not
trouble me, for I know I shall get some more — a
few every day." Nothing could give any idea of
the quiet candour of this reply. Tainted water
often runs more quietly than a clear stream, no
doubt, and where guilt is not felt there is no sting
of remorse.
Swallows of love, the fassedett migrate from
kasr to kasr in the Sahara, and will be found at
Wargla after passing through the little town of
N'Guca, the present Caid of which claims
descent from the nurse of the Prophet. The Said
nomads of dignified presence, the Shaanba, the
Otba Beni-Thur, and all the other wanderers of
the desert, will be deliphted to find them when
they reach the crowded meeting places in their
route.
252 FROM TUGGURT TO 2N-SALAH.
Beyond the Wady Mia, however, these meeting
places become more and more rare, for the accumu-
lated sand, its surface swept and crumbled into
dust by the wind, presents a most formidable
obstacle to marching, and when the gaci, as the
hardened ground is called, or the rocky Hamada
district replaces the Ergesh sand hills, the fate
of the traveller becomes even worse, for there are
no wells and the w^ater stored in the skins soon be-
comes tainted beneath the burning rays of the sun.
Land of monotonous beauty, hated by many,
but loved by its own children ! Yes ; the
Shaanba wrapped in their burnouses, the Tuaregs
swathed in their sombre veils, all love it, this
, terrible desert. The French domination is grudg-
ingly submitted to by the first, and hated by the
second, not only for material and religious reasons,
but because they are afraid that the foreigners
may make changes in their deeply-cherished
Sahara.
The two most out-lying inhabited points, the
Zauia (chapel, refuge or convent) of Temassinin
and the kasr of El-Golea, before you come to
In-Salah and the Tuat oasis, are on the left and
right of the imaginary line alluded to above. The
Zama belongs to the religious order of the Tijani,
one of the most liberal of the Southern Sahara,
and it was with its members at Temassinin that
the French explorer Duveyrier took refuge from
A CHANGE OF SCENERY. 253
the AzQueur and HoQfoar Tuareg-s. Here, too, is
now the last French post in the direction of Air
and Lake Tchad. The kasr of El-Golea, the
occupation of which by the French aroused the
jealousy of Morocco, is a kind of foretaste of Tuat
and Gurara. The scenery changes greatly in
character ; mountains begin to appear, and there
is a difference about the oases, for you can
actually see water gleaming amongst the palm
trees. Once the constant resort of the Shaanba,
it is now merely their market and storehouse.
254 FROM TUGGURT TO IN-SALAH.
I fancy it will be very much the same thing
with In-Salah, recently occupied by the French,
and the other Tuareg harbours of refuge. In-Salah,
the capital and fortress of the oasis of Tidikelt,
is the key of the Tuat, Gurara, and Messaura,
those rich, fertile and populous districts in which
one oasis succeeds another as far as Igli, repre-
senting an area equal to a third of France, dotted
with a perfect chaplet of wealthy kusur, or fortified
villages, of which there are no less than 349,
owning amongst them twelve million date palms.
Now, until recently the whole of this district
was practically a teri'a incognita amongst the
French possessions, represented in maps by a
blank space, in the very heart of French Africa.
Not only were the French not masters of it, they
had not even the right of entering, still less of
crossing, it ; a fact which was alike embarrassing
and irritating, hampering all commercial as well
as political dealings with the newly-annexed
neighbouring territories.
All, absolutely all, the trade carried on by
caravan between the Soudan and the North, that
is to say, Morocco, Algeria, Tunis and Tripoli,
passes through the Tuat oasis and In-Salah. The
Hoggar Tuaregs, the fierce protectors of the
convoys, compel the camel drivers and merchants
to take this route because their own particular
depot is at In-Salah. It is no light matter to cross
APPEARANCE OF IN-SALAH. 255
the will of a Targui, as an individual member
of the Tuareg tribe is called, for, if he gets out
of temper, he is just as likely to rob as to pro-
tect, and, instead of protecting, he sometimes
slays. The money he has received as the
price of his fidelity does not trouble him in the
least.
Properly speaking, In-Salah is not a town. It
is a group of four little kusiir, built very close
together, each with its citadel and fortifications,
and the population of all four is only 3,200, with
some 5,000 more belonging to the fifteen outlying
villages of the suburbs.
In-Salah, however, does not owe its prestige to
the number of its inhabitants, whether merchants
or warriors, but to the fact that it was supposed
to be inaccessible. The people of the Tuat, Gurara,
and Messaura oases expected, sooner or later, to
see the French arrive from the North or West
with the permission of Allah, when he should
wish to chastise them for their sins ; but Tidikelt
and In-Salah, in the east, were looked upon as
absolutely impregnable ramparts. This popular
delusion was shared by no less than 400,000
souls, for that is the approximate total number of
the inhabitants of the oasis, a large figure when
compared with that of the population elsewhere in
the Sahara.
The French occupation of the Tuat oasis almost
256 FROM TUGGURT TO IN-SALAH.
necessarily changed the course, still merely theoretical,
of the Trans-Saharian railway. Better still, it won
over many who had hitherto opposed the scheme
of its construction ; for the trade between Tuat
and Timbuktu, and Tuat and the Mediterranean,
would do something towards lessening the enormous
cost of the strategic line. For the Tuat oasis is
undoubtedly rich, and gets its cereals, its meat —
whether preserved or in the form of live stock —
its cotton stuffs, its domestic and other utensils,
its weapons, its soap, and above all its candles,
so dear to the Arab, from a long^ distance off
To set against these imports, it exports its dates
to the four quarters of the globe, and owns such
immense quantities that some of the poorer families
live entirely on them, and they are the only food
of all domestic animals, horses, camels, and mules,
not to speak of the enormous stock which goes
bad every year. The Tuat oasis also produces
donkeys of a select breed, much sought after in
Morocco, as well as the striped silks called haiks,
in weavinof which the women excel, beautiful and
delicate basket-work, passementerie, embroidered
purses, and fringes, all made by the wives of the
Tuareg warriors.
The Gurara oasis, in which villages are grouped
in rather a quaint way about a lake with very
little water, produces very much the same commo-
dities as does that of Tuat. Moreover, the soil of
A REAL WATERCOURSE. 257
the Gurara districts is unlike that elsewhere, and
there are actually certain vegetables which grow
wild in it, such as cabbages and sorrel, the latter
of a quality no cook would despise. To those
who know the desert, the springing up of these
wild vegetables appears little short of miraculous.
Gurara is also celebrated for its skilful gardeners,
negroes with a dash of Arab blood, who sometimes
migrate with their families to El-Aghuat, Ghardaya,
and the kzisih^ of the Wady M'zab, where they
are known as Gttrari, and grow vegetables on
square patches of the oasis.
As for the third sub-division of the highly-
favoured districts of which Tidikelt may be called
the advanced guard, it is of a very pleasing
appearance, for, throughout the whole length of
Messaura extends a valley forming one vast forest
of date palms. And this Messaura wady is
one with a real, visible watercourse, not a mere
dried-up bed of a river ; that is to say, it is a
watercourse along which water actually flows for
some eight days every year. A wonderful thing
in a Saharian wady, for, to give but one or two
examples, water flows in the Wady M'zab for
two days only every five or six years, whilst in
the Mia Wady it flows every twenty-five years as
a rule, but twice it has neglected to do even that !
Whereas all the eastern wadys, that of Messaura
above all, have never-failing subterranean rivers,
17
258 FROM TUGGURT TO IN-SALAH.
with the aid of which the palms are kept constantly
watered.
After the assassination of Colonel Flatters, the
prisoners taken by the Tuareg warriors escaped to
In-Salah, where they were well received and kindly
cared for. Later they were not sparing in their
praise of the affability of the Aulad el Moktar, the
luxury of their houses, and the sumptuousness of
their gilded furniture. Some allowance must be
made for the over enthusiasm of the prisoners, mere
nomads of the Desert, for it was, of course, easy to
dazzle them. Still, in the narratives of the
explorers of the Congo and the African lakes, we
read that the Arab traders from Mozambique have
gilded beds, silk draperies, and rooms with painted
and carved decorations, all representing a kind of
barbaric luxury, such as might also have prevailed
at In-Salah.
The dealer in slaves soon becomes rich, and
there is no lack of slaves, either in the Gurara, or
the Tuat oasis. The population is divided into
the sedentary Arabs and Berbers, and the religious
nobles known as Sherfa, which is the plural of
shereef, who, besides a large number of slaves,
have in their service many haratin, or half-serf
cultivators. The Sherfa caste, which never takes
up arms, the fighting being done for it by its
slaves and haratin, is bitterly and fatally hostile
to French influence, the more so, because some
A TARGUI WARRIOR.
17'
INTRIGUES AND COUNTER-INTRIGUES. 261
members of the great Gery ville and Wargla warrior
sect, the celebrated A ulad-Sidi- Sheikh went with
the French to In-Salah.
This, of course, is quite easy to understand ; the
more the influence increases in the Tuat oasis of
other marabouts, such as the Tijani Naib, chief
of the Kadria, or of the A ulad-Sidi -Sheikh who
lead the faithful Sheikhia, and the more the haughty
Sherfa of the country see the followers who enrich
them, and whose obedience gratifies their pride,
melting away, the less effective for evil will be the
action of the followers of the powerful Sheikh el
Senussi.*
Amongst the various and mixed populations,
intrigues and counter intrigues will, of course, con-
tinue. It will be the wisdom of the French, whilst
mitigating its worst results, to keep this rivalry well
alive, for nowhere does the Machiavellian proverb, to
rule you must divide, apply more forcibly than in
the Sahara.
1 hope to give the results of my study of the
women of the Tuat oasis, and of the Tuareg women
of the south and east in another book, but I cannot
"•■' This Sheikh is the founder of a secret society, widely spread in
North Africa and Asia, with members it is said even in Europe. He
is supposed to be now Hving in the interior of Tripoli, where he
exercises great influence, an influence extending even to the Soudan,
where he has attempted to interfere with the English. By some he
is looked upon as a Mahdi, and he seems likely to cause the French
some trouble in their organization of North Africa, but his power is
greatly exaggerated. — Trans.
262
FROM TUGGURT TO IN-SALAH.
refrain from saying a few words here on the last
named tribe, the fiercest of all the people of the
Sahara. I have a friend (?) amongst the Azgueur-
Tuareg, for the excellent Targui Wen-Titi by
name, brother-in-law of the great chief Aghitaghel,
honoured me with his confidence on certain
psychological questions. Truly, his views were
by no means usual, and I can fancy him still as
he held forth, a big burly fellow, wearing a hood
and a blue veil, and holding his spear in his right
hand and his dagger in his left.
He was very severe on the Arabs — for to a
Targui the Arabs, especially the Shaanba Arabs,
are the great rivals of the Tuareg tribes, in the
art of plundering — for hiding their women as
they do.
" You see," he said to me, speaking very
slowly, "we warriors hide our faces, so that the
enemy may not know what is in our minds.
TUAREG CHRISTIANS. 263
peace or war, but women have nothing to con-
ceal, for the enemy never approaches them ! "
Then he added : " The woman is the mother of
good counsel and of wisdom. If there were
only women amongst us, we Tuareg would van-
quish the world, we should own everything as far
as Paris."
This enthusiasm, expressed though it was in
hyperbolic language, does honour to the Targuiyett,
as the Tuareg women are called, that being the
plural for Targuiya. The Mussulman yoke has not
subdued their spirit, they have evaded it whilst
accepting the dogmas of Mohammed. The fact is,
these Tuareg tribes have too strong a sense of
humour to make good converts. Can they, I
wonder, have any Franco-Norman blood in them }
I am afraid not, though there is something very
attractive about the idea ! It has been said that
it was necessary to convert them to Islamism by
force seven times in succession. And when be-
fore that they adopted the Christian faith, their
religious belief cannot have been much more the
result of conviction than was their later creed.
That in olden times the Tuareg tribes were
Christians, is a fact too well established to need
discussion here. It has been accounted for in
three different ways, some saying that Christianity
was introduced from Abyssinia, others that it was
the result of the influence of Christian Rome
2 64 I^ROM TUGGURT TO IN-SALAH.
in North Africa, yet others, that some of the
Crusaders of Saint Louis of France remained in
Africa after the death of that king, becoming later
merged in the Berber tribes, and being with them
driven into the Desert by the Arabs, a theory at
which I hinted above. Whatever the cause, the
Tuareg tribes retained many foreign superstitions,
some of which it must be owned, such as the behef
in enchanted forests and wonderful fish, are very
like those of Brittany and other districts on the
English Channel. They still wore the cross, which
indeed is retained amongst them to this day, but
for all that they remained heathen to the back-
bone.
The Targuiya or Tuareg woman enjoys real
independence and exercises great influence. She
ventures alone, on the back of her mehari or
thorough-bred camel, into the remote districts of
the Desert. She shares the councils of her husband,
and if she survives him as a widow she inherits
his power. Moreover, property is inherited amongst
the Tuareg through the female line, and a child is
the heir, not of his father, but of his uncle, for
there is often really no certainty as to who the
father is.
Poor, but intensely proud as they are, it is simply
impossible to reduce the Tuareg to submission.
They remain free, hating the Rumis and Shaanba
about equally. Listen to one of the satirical songs
A SATIRICAL SONG. 265
which the Targuiyctt improvise on the Shaan-
biyett, about whom they really have none but
hearsay knowledge. See how, with the spiteful
hatred only women indulge in, the raillery
stings and cuts, outraging all the most sensitive
feelings.
" Ah ! Ah ! There she goes, the woman in the
veil !
" She is afraid to show herself because she is
so ugly.
" She knows well enough that she is just a big
sack full of cold fat.
" A skin full of nothing but stupidity and
vanity !
" She obeys like a dog, this bitch, the daughter
of a bitch !
" When the warriors return from the fio-ht she
does not bind up their wounds.
" She thinks of nothing but sleeping, and adding
to the size of her huge body.
" And when she catches sight of food she writhes
with delight and neighs,
" Yes ; she neighs like a horse at the sight of
his fodder."
Pure calumny, exaggerated calumny of course, is
this fierce song of exultation over the Shaanbiya,
for though, no doubt, she is stout for a Saharian
Arab, I do not think she is stouter than any of
her sisters of the Desert. I confess that, as far as
266 FROM TUGGURT TO IN-SALAH.
I am myself concerned, my sympathies are with
the Arab rather than the Tuareg race. The
women may be less intelligent and less energetic,
but their mode of life has never changed since
the palmy days of Chaldea, and they have not
been altered by their modern environment simply
because it resembles that of their ancestors ;
indeed, that environment has made on them
a yet deeper impression, an impression intensi-
fied in its transmission from one generation to
another.
Poor Shaanbiyett ! The Tuareg tribes make fun
of them, and the Arabs of other districts despise
them. The Agha Jellul, who is chief of the
Laarba tribes, said to me one day in his picturesque
French :
" What do you see in these Shaanba women ?
Why, they are less beautiful on their wedding
day than ours are when they are making
kouskous ! "
Truth to tell, they have few silk rohas^ few
figured vialiffas, few handkerchiefs brocaded
with gold. Their garments are made of pink
or blue linen, and their ornaments are of humble
silver, not of gold. But for all that, their
mode of life, their manners and customs, are
identical with those of the nomad Arabs. And
if you go with me to the dawar, to the few
scattered tents forming a little world in them-
A TRUE SPECIMEN.
267
selves in the Desert, you will see a true specimen
of the true life of the Sahara, whether of the east
or of the west, of the Laarba, the Aulad-Mia or
the Aulad-N'ssa.
THE PRA YER OF DA WN. 269
CHAPTER XV.
LIFE IN THE DAWAR AMONGST THE NOMAD
ARAB TRIBES.
The dawar is beginning to wake up. The first
faint rays of dawn have but just begun to appear
in the East, yet already the old men have all
come out of the tents to make their morning
prayer, the prayer of El-Fejur,* beneath the wide
dome of the quiet sky.
Yes, the prayer of El-Fejur, into which are
gathered up all the tremors of the dark night,
scarcely past ; all the feelings induced by the
awful silence, when all light is absent ; the silence
of utter nothingness, when the creature, all too
conscious of his weakness, cries aloud to his all-
powerful Creator :
"In the name of the All-Merciful and Pitiful,
I seek a refuge with the Lord of the Dawn, against
the wickedness of the beings created by Him,
* This is the same prayer as the Subh. The word comes from
Fejr, dawn.^TRANS.
270
LIFE IN THE DA WAR.
against evil and night, when they overtake us
suddenly."
The voices rise as if the petitioners were in
despair, then they gradually drop, and the words
come slowly, softly, musically, persuasively,
breaking at last into sudden sobs. And as one
listens, one seems to hear the sighs, the complaints,
the groans of all humanity. The race which daily
uses a prayer such as this may be degraded.
torpid, what you will, but for all that it assuredly
retains some noble souls imbued with profound
faith in God, profound pity for their fellow creatures.
This prayer breathes forth, no doubt, emotions and
feelings different from our own, but not so
different as to exclude our sympathy and com-
prehension. Such a petition applies alike
to the solitary and the social life, and nowhere
do the solitary and social life so nearly touch each
other, or so nearly merge the one in the other, as
in the dawar.
THE AWAKENING OF THE DA WAR. 271
The faith represented by that prayer is needed
to enable the people of the dawar to bear their
terrible isolation in the midst of the oppressive vast-
ness surrounding them ; its wide charity is needed
to aid them in rearing their orphans, caring for
their aged, nursing their sick, aiding their infirm,
and I must add that what may perhaps be called its
brutality, which is but a form of combativeness,
is an absolute essential in the struggle for life
in the Desert.
But now the little ones in their turn slip out
from the tents into the open air. Their big black
eyes gaze at the grand scene before them without
comprehending it in the least. To them the
glorious sun, rising in his might from the sandy
bed, suddenly brings the clay, which nothing can dim
till the evening, when his equally sudden departure
ushers in the dark night that swallows him up. The
young men come out also, still half asleep,
enervated by the long hours of repose. The
women alone, busy with their domestic affairs,
remain in the canvas home. They can be heard
calling to each other or scolding, asking for wood,
reproaching those who have not yet gone to fetch
the water they want.
" Patience, patience," mutter the old men. Then,
shaking their heads, they quote to each other the
Moslem proverb : " It is better to be patient than
to desire ; it is better to hope than to despair."
272 LIFE IN THE DA WAR.
By degrees, however, the hearths begin to glow,
thanks to the last sparks of the fire always
carefully kept up through the night. The bad
water from the neighbouring r dir is boiling in
the saucepan, and the penetrating odour of
the caouaJi, now in general use, fills the whole
dawar.
Of course, the tents of the dawar are only
pitched for any length of time in places pro-
vided with water. The term rdir is applied to
the little pools left in the impermeable soil by
previous rain, or which has been obtained by
infiltration.
When the caouah is ready all are summoned to
drink. " Drink big ones, drink little ones," and
they all drink, munch up a few dates, and wipe
their mouths on their burnouses. Then the
children run away, and the men and the women
who have come to years of discretion exclaim :
" Thanks be to Allah ! Praised be the Lord,
who understands men and provides for their
needs ! "
The morning wears on. The heat will be
bearable until about eio-ht o'clock. The work
o
is now begun, which will be finished without fail
in the evening, when the heavy shadows that
usher in the night have fallen.
All the work of the dawar, which, by the way,
is by no means hard, is done day by day
AN EMBKOIDKKER ON LHATHER.
i8
WOMEN'S WORK IN THE DA WAR. 275
in this way, during the few less painful minutes
of the day : when those who do not know what
temperate climates are, imagine there is a certain
freshness about the air. Husbands and brothers
go off to fill the water skins, to collect brushwood,
or to seek for pasturage or a fresh spot contain-
ing water. Some have to look after the animals,
which is a light task enough, others are sent to kill
vipers. Belgacem sharpens his razors, Messaud
mends a saddle, Bailich sews a gandura. But the
most important part of the labour falls on the
women, or at least so they persuade themselves
and try to persuade others. " Oh, Zorah ! Oh,
Aisha! Oh, Yam'ina ! What worry, what a lot of
trouble we have ! To beat the butter, to grind
the grain, to knead the bread ! .... to
mould the clay for pottery, to weave jerbis, to
spin wool from our sheep — wool so white that
that of the North cannot possibly be more beau-
tiful. We are exhausted with fatigue, we have
been at it all long enough, beating and rubbing
the wool, washing it with native soaps, and
then rinsing it out flock by flock in the
stream in the nearest wady, which is such a long
way off"
A relative activity then is going on in the dawar.
Would you like a glimpse of the inside of a
tent ? You can very well imagine what the outside
is like. A great expanse of stuff, made of bands of
18*
276 LIFE IN THE DAWAR.
brown woollen material stitched together, stretched
over poles fixed in the ground, and kept in place
by pegs. Here is the whole establishment, the
residence of the entire family, separated into two
unequal parts by a tissue division. But such as
it is, it is a true home, and the primitive tissue
division is the unmistakable sign of civilization.
It is only the most unsophisticated of savages
who have one common lair for all. There is no
need to go to Australia or New Caledonia to meet
with such lairs, for I have seen whole families of
European origin — Montenegrins, Wallachians, and
Ruthenians — with their beasts and cattle huddled
beneath one skimpy awning. What does it matter
to me if the Arabs have evolved this division into
two parts in their mobile dwellings ? I find in
it an indication of feelings more refined than mere
instinct, a suggestion of reserve, of a desire for
privacy, and many other things on which I need
not dwell.
Do not, however, jump to the conclusion that
every tent is a delightful retreat. Oh, no ! very
far from it ! There are too many things wanting
for that, and one of the first of these is cleanliness.
The carpets and frechias used as beds are piled
up anyhow, and are full of holes. In one corner
is a bale of camels' hair, in another a mutchatchu
is asleep. From the tent poles hangs a fox's skin,
and in the chest is some harness, with a lot of
A POSSIBLE REFUGE. 277
rags and some old broken pots. The drawbacks
under which work is done in the dawar are great
enough, but they would be still greater if it were
not possible to take refuge in the open air, amongst
the sheep and goats, the remains of yesterday's
cooking, camels' saddles, torn bags, broken bassurs
or palanquins, wooden platters, baskets, saucepans,
and sieves for straining alfa, etc. But fortunately
this resource of the open air is there, and it is con-
stantly turned to account. It is with the vast wastes
of the desert around us, and beneath the immense
dome of vivid blue sky, that we pay our visit to
278 LIFE IN THE DAWAR.
Fatmah, the wife of the tall and thin Taieb-ben-
Schetti, and watch her at her daily work, in
company with her mother, El-Haja, 'her daughter
Kerah, and her young sister-in-law, Mesauda the
happy.
I hope when you have finished reading my
account of house-keeping here, that you will be
able to undertake the charge of any tent, no
matter which, in the da war.
We must begin at the very beginning, that is
to say, with the grinding which converts grain into
flour.
The mill used by the Arab women, the soft
sound of the pounding in which is heard as soon
as a dwelling is approached, does indeed emit
what may be called the " Song of the Hearth "
in the Sahara, just as on the hearths of other
climes does the chirping of the cricket or the
bubbling of the boiling pot. The mill supplies
material for the koitskoiis of festive eveninos, the
kessra of every-day life, the broth of invalids,
and of the poor who have no hearths of their
own, as well as the so-called rutna of the traveller
and the warrior, which is made of corn first parched
and then ground, and is carried in the hood of
his burnous by the wayfarer, who eats it just as it
is, moistened with water. The mill is under the
special benediction of Allah. The two little grind-
stones of these mills, the upper one of which is
GRIXniXG THE I' LOUR. z-jf)
worked with a handle, are not merely necessary-
accessories of the Arab menage, they are actual
ingredients of it, and without her mill an Arab
woman of the South would no more seem to me a
true Arab woman, than she would if she wore a cap.
Mesauda and Kerah are turninof the mill this
morning. Look at them, seated on the ground
opposite each other, with the mill between their
knees, working it slowly and rhythmically, the
drapery of their loose robes falling back and display-
ing their beautifully moulded arms as they make the
curious alternate motions of the handle. They
stoop more than is necessary ; for, like children,
they play over their work, laughing as they finger
the reddish flour falling into the sheep s skin spread
upon the ground beside them. They throw pinches,
even handfuls, of the flour at each other, and
become sprinkled with splashes of it, giving them
a very funny appearance.
" Oh, thou white one ! " they cry : " Oh, thou
sweet one ! "
The mother, who is making butter a little way
off, indignantly remonstrates with them.
" Oh, Mesauda ! Oh, Kerah ! it is sacrilege
to waste flour like that. Thou mightest as well
tear a page of the Holy Koran ; thou mightest
as well think evil of the Holy Prophet, whom may
God bless, he and his family, and give them
health ! "
2 8o LIFE IN THE DA WAR.
Then the girls, piqued at being chidden, get
angry ; Fatmah, without leaving her butter, gets
angry too. They are good-for-nothing girls, she
says, Mesauda has been no use since she began
to give herself airs ; yes, since she noticed how
the handsome Ahmed looked at her. But the
handsome Ahmed is not really giving a thought
to Mesauda, she may be sure of that. He
prefers the girls he can see in the towns, and
who never say him nay. And even if Ahmed
did admire her, is that any reason why Mesauda
should be so conceited and so idle ? And Kerah,
too, she is just the same, imitating Mesauda's
bad example. Stupid children ! Why can't they
be reasonable, and do the very little work asked
of them properly ? Scarcely an hour's work a
day !
Mesauda, who is now furious, replies: "We do
things because we like them, because they amuse
us. The Sidi," as she calls Taieb-ben-Schetti, the
father of Kerah and her own elder brother, "never
gave orders that we were to work."
And, crimson with rage, she gets up, and leads
away Kerah, who looks very uneasy, as a tame
pigeon might if persuaded to fly off with a wild
dove.
" By Allah, you are a pair ! " cries Fatmah.
" What ! you would leave the mill i Oh, you are
two wicked girls, who "
A PEACEMAKER. 281
But the grandmother, El-Haja, who is full of
indulgence for the children, interrupts the blas-
phemous speech. Smiling and sighing, she says :
" Take care, oh Fatmah, that thy tongue does
not lead thee from the straight path. What do
you expect } It is only because they are young.
They will have time enough to work when they
are married."
As she speaks the good old El-Haja goes
to the innocent mill, which has remained on the
ground as if it awaited the hand to set it in
motion again (this is El-Haja's expression, not
mine), and the dear old lady sets to work herself,,
turning and turning the handle. Then she sifts
the flour from the grit, reciting a prayer the
while, the litany of the hundred names of the Lord,
the All-Powerful, the Creator, the Sanctifier, the
Pitiful, the Merciful, etc., winding up with " Allah
is greater than all."
Meanwhile Fatmah, who is now calm again, has
gone on swinging the skin containing the camels'
milk to be made into butter. The brown object,
hung from two poles, sways backwards and
forwards in regularly graduated jerks, in which
there is more skill than would appear. In spite
of the heat, butter will be produced, but it is
allowed to get rancid on purpose, and it is always
flavoured with a horrible grass which sniells of
assafoetida.
282
LIFE IN THE DA WAR.
" The butter," or dWiaiui as she calls it,
" is very good to-day," says Fatmah to El-
Haja.
" Well, the Sidi can eat it insh Allah (please
God) with the kessra and so can the boys. As it
happens, we had nothing left but a few dates."
" Mother, look at the sun ! Is it not time to
think about the kessra ? "
Fatmah says this in a tone which betrays, better
than any commentary could do, the fact that it is
the grandmother who sees to the mid-day meal, for
El-Haja is the head baker and cook of the tent.
And sure enough, the old lady, without leaving her
place, draws towards her the big gueca, or wooden
bowl, in which a fowl has been soaking for some
time. In it, with the aid of a little turbid water —
for, alas ! the people of the dawar have no water
A PRIMUS VE OVEN. 283
that is not turbid — she damps some of the coarse
flour just ground. Then she rolls the paste thus
produced into a ball. Observe, she has added
neither butter, salt, fat nor leaven of any kind, for
the magnesia in the water takes the place of any
other ingredient. The paste is already made, ab-
solutely finished, there is nothing left to do but to
put it into the oven.
Where is that oven }
Truth to tell, it is simple enough. El-Haja
is going to make it, or rather to demolish it ; for,
to begin with, the fire still burning in front of the
tent, quite close to the entrance, must be removed.
You remember the fire, do you not, which was made
for preparing the caouaJi? Well, El-Haja sets
about removing it, aided by the clumsy little fingers
of the mutchatchus who are playing about ; some
are her own, that is to say, the children of her
son-in-law, the others belong to her neighbours.
That does not make any difference ; they all call
her grandmother, and they all press about the fire
the more they are told to keep away from it, and
not to touch it. " Oh, Said, do not tear thy
gandura," and then, " Oh, Nassur, take care what
you are doing with the cinders. Come, come,
do as I tell thee ! When the Prophet (may Allah
preserve him ! ) was a little boy living with his
nurse Sahd'ia (may the Lord bless her ! ) he obeyed
her in everything. And when the virtuous Sahd'ia
284 LIFE IN THE DA WAR.
said to him : ' Oh, Mohammed, do not dig up the
sand with thy left hand,' Mohammed never used his
left hand again, never ! never ! So he became the
friend of God, the venerated, the Father of the
Faithful."
From this harangue you will guess that El-Haja
is actually digging in the sand, with the aid of
Nassur and Said, Kheir and Mabruka. She
makes a hole of wide extent, but little depth, just
in the hottest place, cleared of coal and cinders.
"Aye! yah!" screams Said, "the hole burns my
fingers." El-Haja takes no notice of him. The
moment is far too solemn and too grave. I am
reminded of the French cook on some fete day,
who with anxious mien awaits the moment for
putting her masterpieces in the oven. Now look.
Said, Nassur, Mabruka! El-Haja is putting the
ball of paste in the middle of the hot hole in
the naked sand. Then she quickly covers it
over with the lukewarm debris of the previous
fire. Now bring the brushwood, the twigs, the
scanty wood of the Desert, for a brasier must
be made on top of the oven, which is to be heated
from above.
I have not quite told you all yet ; do not cry out
with disgust, as you read further. This useful
brasier, this furnace, which is to draw slowly and
not to be too fierce, do you know with what El-
Haja feeds it ? Well, not to put too fine a point
PREPARING THE MID-DAY MEAL. 285
upon it, with camel dung, which makes capital
fuel, simply invaluable in the Desert, and which
there is nothing to replace. Some was used
this morning in the fire for making the coffee,
and a bit not quite burnt away may have actually
touched the excellent kessra. All the world will
tell you that camel dung is not dirty. El-Haja
would deny that it is, so would Fatmah and her
husband Taieb-ben-Schetti. So would Kerah, and
even that conceited girl Mesauda.
No, no, ye people of Europe, there is nothing
disagreeable about camels' dung. The sand
of the Desert purifies all it touches, still more all
it covers up. How can you suppose that the
kessra of the tent is anything but clean and sweet,
nay more, delicious and scantified }
" Then said the holy marabout to the man, ' As a
reward for thy piety and the services thou hast
rendered to me I will, if God permit, give to thee
as wife the daughter of the Sultan.
The grandmother is telling a story to her willing
helpers whilst she watches over and feeds the oven
above the kessra. This is a departure from her
usual custom of only telling stories in the evening.
But Nassur must be amused, for he is not very
well, and that is considered quite excuse enough for
him even if he has been naughty. Allah, who sees
all, will pardon the fault because of the intention.
286 LIFE IN THE DAIVAR.
" ' How can you make me marry the daughter of
the Sultan ?' asked the man."
Here ensues a parenthesis. El-Haja explains
how impolite such a question was. No one, big
or little, should ever allow himself to ask rude
questions. So little Kheir dares not ask the
question trembling on his lips, " Grandmother, what
was the name of the man ? " Fortunately, El-
Haja seems to have guessed what he wanted to
know, for she went on :
" The man was called Ali-ben-Kaddur, and he
was a good Mussulman, walking without stumbling
in the ways of Allah. Just for that and that only,
EL-HAJA'S STORY. 287
his rudeness was pardoned by the marabout, and
the marabout deigned to reply to him : ' Oh, my son,
be not anxious about the deaHngs of the Divine
Wisdom with thee, AHah knows best. Follow my
teaching and all will be well with thee. Pick up
the stones thou seest all round about us. The
bigger they are the better. Fill the skirt of thy
gandura with them. Go on picking them up, do
not be afraid of the weight, for nothing but the
burden of sin need be feared, and may Allah pre-
serve thee. Amen ! ' "
El-Haja imitates the scene in pantomime,
stooping down and picking up imaginary stones ta
put them into an imaginary gandura. Whilst
she is thus employed the young girls approach
her, the timid Kerah and the conceited Mes-
auda, who have now got over the sulks. "An
Hekaia " (a story), they cry ; " oh, how splendid."
And, in spite of the increasing heat from the
oven, they squat down round the fire of camels'
dung. The grandmother has now six eager
listeners.
" ' Oh, Ali-ben-Kaddur,' resumed the marabout,
' go to the Sultan with thy stones, and say to him :
"Oh, noble upholder of religion, noble Prince of
the Faithful, I come to ask thee to give me
thy daughter in legal marriage, and I bring thee
some stones as her dowry.
"By Allah! What an idea!" cries Mesauda,.
288 LIFE jy THE DAJJ'AR.
the only one of the audience who dares to express
her opinion.
" Hearing these words, poor Ali-ben-Kaddur felt
his very heart and liver turn cold. ' Surely, when
the Sultan sees these stones he will get into a
just rage. He will say to his mokhazni, " Stone
that insolent fellow, that wretch who dares to offer
those pieces of rock to me ! " ' So, as Ali-ben-
Kaddur, the man of little faith, was marching
towards the Palace of the Sultan, he threw the big
stones on the ground like this, as if he didn't know
what he was doino; .... All the time he
was thinking ' that pointed one would have killed
me when they began to stone me ; bah, I'll throw
it away. This big one would have broken my leg,
bother ! away it goes ! This rough one would have
torn the skin off my head, away it goes ! ' And
if the holy marabout had not accompanied him,
insJi Allah, he would have thrown them all away,
forgetting that a good marabout should have
no will of his own, for that which is written will
happen, whatever he does. It is Maktub. At last ;
one of the two throwing stones away and the
other looking on, they arrived at the Palace of the
Sultan."
The audience listens with bated breath, all the
more because the narrator has paused for a moment
to take a necessary look at the kessra through a
little hole ad hoc. Some men have now actually
A LI ARRIVES AT THE PALACE.
289
joined the little boys and the youno' i^irls, and even
the handsonie Ahmed hiniseh" is hoverino-, like a
falcon over its prey, round the group by the fire;,
amongst whom is the beautiful Mesauda.
" Zid ! Lai I a El-Haja ! go on ! "
The grandmother carefully notes the behaviour
of Ahmed and Mesauda ; she also gives a search-
ing glance at Kerah, for v^ho can tell at what
moment Shaitan may first whisper his evil counsels?
However, she goes on :
" So here they are, arrived at the Palace of the
Sultan. Silly Ali-ben-Kaddur is trembling with
fear. He feels his teeth chattering, going clouk !
clak ! clik ! like the bill of a stork. Then the holy
marabout, who pretends he has noticed nothing,
issues the order, * Go to the audience chamber of
19
290 LIFE IN THE DAWAR.
the Sultan, ask of him the hand of his noble
daughter and present to him thy beautiful stones.'
Ali-ben-Kaddur, almost as dead with terror as if
he had been killed the year before, is obliged to
obey. As he goes along he keeps groaning to him-
self, ' Oh ! oh ! oh ! oh ! my beautiful stones, my poor
beautiful stones, they will do finely to stone poor
Ali-ben-Kaddur. Oh ! oh ! oh ! oh ! ' Oh children,
what a man of little faith ! There he is approach-
ing the throne of the Sultan. Here he is actually
addressing the Sultan. ' Oh, all powerful lord, be
thou about my head and about my eyes ! Be
generous to me. Do not kill me, but grant to your
humble little one the hand of thy noble daughter.
Accept as dowry these little offerings I have
brought with me against my will. Oh, do not kill
me,' and his knees knock together, and he casts
down his eyes as he turns away, muttering to him-
self all the time, ' Oh, dear me ! oh dear ! oh dear !
oh dear ! Oh ! oh ! oh ! '"
The audience is consumed with delight at the
old lady's realistic imitation of the terrors of the
cowardly Ali-ben-Kaddur.
'"Oh dear ! oh dear ! oh ! oh ! Ah ! ah ! ' All of a
sudden his terror is redoubled. Aye, yah ! yah !
The awful hand of the Sultan is stretched out
towards the stones and grips the gandura as if
it were some coveted prey. It is all over now !
Ali is dying of horror. Brou ! Brou ! Brou ! Brou
SUDDEN RE LIE J'. 291
Brou ! When lo ! oh marvel of marvels ! When
lo, suddenly" — the old lady pauses.
" When suddenly ! oh, grandmother ! oh, Leila
El-Haja ! go on, go on. Zid ! Zid !''
" When suddenly the Sultan says grandly, but
kindly : ' Oh, my son, oh Ali-ben-Kaddur. not only
do I give to thee my daughter to do with her what
thou wilt, but I make thee my Khelifah (representa-
tive) in thy province, and my heirs to come will
thank thee for having enriched my throne and my
treasury.' "
" Thus joyfully did the great, the magnanimous,
Sultan speak, for lo ! the stones of Ali-ben-Kaddur
had become changed into emeralds of huge size
and exquisite colour ; so beautiful, that beside them
those of the wife of a caid would look mere rubbish,
and the diamonds of King Solomon would be
eclipsed by them, just as the light of the stars is
eclipsed when the mighty sun appears ! "
A murmur of admiration runs through the
audience. The little ones open their mouths wide
in their astonishment, the young girls shudder with
a kind of envy of the bride who had such a dowry.
The men, who are more sceptical, or, at least
pretend to be, for all these people feel profoundly
even the fictions they recognise as such, the men
want to know how it all ended.
" How it ended ! " cries the grandmother, " I'll
tell you that in three words, although it is high
19*
292
LIFE IN THE DAWAR.
time I saw to my kessra. Ali-ben-Kaddur, as.
proud as any vizier, went back home again, taking
with him the dauQ^hter of the Sultan. She was a
virgin, and more beautiful than the moon on the
fifteenth day of the month. Besides his wife, Ali-
ben-Kaddur had received from the Sultan, not to
speak of a beautiful sword and costly stuffs, one
hundred camels, five hundred sheep, ten negroes,
and twenty negresses, carpets, frechias, all he could
need, to live very happily till the time came for his
cup to be drained. . . . And the Celestial
gardens will reserve the same happiness for all of
you who walk in the way of the All- Merciful, the
All-Pitiful Allah ! "
After these last words a silence falls upon the
group. But it is suddenly broken by the voice of
little Nassur, who says to his cousin Said, in an
aside, that everybody hears :
" Ali-ben-Kaddur was not polite, he was not
NASSUR IN TROUBLE. 29.3
obedient, he did not believe, did he, oh SuVd ? But
he got a lot of beautiful rewards, didn't he ?"
What shouts of laughter PTeeted the insidious
remark of little Nassur ! The poor mutchatchu
hid his face in the hood of his burnous. He would
have liked to hide in the earth instead of the kessra,
which was at that very moment taken out, all smok-
ing hot, from its hole. His little Arab soul cannot
be consoled for having called attention to himself
and made the grown-ups laugh at his expense. He
sighs all through the meal, whilst he is eating the
portion of kessra given to him by his father in a
corner of the tent. He still ooes on sio-hingf when,
the frugal repast over, the adult and old men chant
the prayer of Dhohr or noon.
Then he forgets his troubles in the heavy torpor
of the inevitable siesta in which everybody in the
dawar indulges after the mid-day repast.
After the siesta, the relations between the different
families of the dawar can be more easily studied
than in the morning. With the exception of Aisha,
the wife of the Kebir, who, accompanied by her
negress, her mother and her sisters, goes to the
wady, all the women are at leisure, that is to say,
there is nothing they are obliged to do, so they go
and pay visits to each other, now to one, now to
another ; quite unlike the visits paid by Hakta to
the women of the kasr which we described in a
previous chapter, but they are visits for all that.
294
LIFE IN THE DA WAR.
informal, free and easy, very much so in fact, in
which, under pretence of spinning wool, they gossip
and talk scandal, retailing the latest misdemeanours
of their neighbours, etc.
" The camel sees not its own hump," says a
proverb of the Sahara, " but it sees that of its
brother."
They begin by picking the character of Aisha,
the wife of the Kebir, to pieces. Why does she go
hers(^lf to wash the linen at the wady instead of
just sending her negress } Why, just to make
people think that she has such a lot of inalifas and
oiigayas that one poor negress cannot wash them all !
By Allah, what nonsense it is ! And then — it is our
friend Fatmah who adds this insinuation — "she has
perhaps yet another motive," " What is it, oh
Fatmah .^ By the Sidi Abd-el-Kader, tell us, do
tell us ! "
SCANDALMONGERS IN THE DA WAR. 295
After much pressing- Fatmah at last decides to
tell. She declares that Aisha likes to play the
young woman, the pretty girl, that she tlutters about
like a pigeon, begging her uncle to escort her to the
river as if she were still a little bride needing to be
taken care of, or as if there were Rumis going
about in the neighbourhood. "By the venerable
Khadija, mother of the Faithful, isn't that last idea
perfectly ridiculous ? . . . unless " — that word
"unless" loosens the tongues, the tongues which
may compromise the salvation of men, and lose
women their one chance of entering the celestial
gardens.
" Unless she has o'ood reasons of her own for
thinkino so ! "
" Unless by always getting a burnous to dance
attendance behind her veil she wants to disarm
suspicion when "
" When they see another burnous near not worn
by a member of the faniily."
" Ah ! ah ! ah ! How amusing you are, Fatmah ! "
" Ah ! ah ! ah ! You will make us split with
laughter, like the frog of the oasis."
" It really is true that Aisha's manners are any-
thing but proper."
" Well, but why did the Kebir marry her "^ "
" One of the Aulad Sidi Atallah ! "
" Almost a beggar ! "
Here some charitable woman intervenes by say-
296 LIFE IN THE DA WAR
ing that the accused, far from being a beggar, had
brought to the Kebir's household many carpets, and
since the marriage had inherited sheep and camels.
But she does no good, this charitable advocate.
" All the more shame to her, if she is rich, to
behave as she does."
'* And the Kebir only took her for her money, for
he has an eye to the main chance."
" Yes, we all know that, to our cost. He keeps,
tight hold of what he gets ; his right hand will never
give anything to his left."
"He has forgotten the proverb : ' Marry a well-
born woman, even if you have to sleep on a mat.' "
" But what would you have ? Is it not written ? "
" It is written ! "
Then that strange silence, the outcome of the
silence of the Desert, falls on them all, and they
become mute, with heads bowed, at this reminder
of the beyond, of Maktub, or Fate ; which does not,
however, mean ouite the same to them as it does to
Europeans, when they speak of resigning themselves
to their fate. To them Maktub represents the
mystery, the power, and the magic of an often cruel
Will. Very curious and dream-like is their con-
ception of the Angel-scribe, the arbiter of Fate of the
Mussulman, who in the third Heaven writes in a
register the future of men. They try to understand
him, to make a mental picture of his appearance —
his terrible appearance. The distance between his
THE SKILL OF EL-HAJA. 297
eyes, as you know, was measured by the lloly
Prophet, on that blessed night when he was able to
ascend to the very Throne of the Merciful God.
Ask El-Haja, she will tell you without hesitation that
this distance is equal to that which a sturdy traveller
could walk in seventy thousand days. Seventy
thousand ! — only from one eyebrow to the other !
El-Haja knows a lot of other things. Plying
her distaff, now in a quiet corner where the old
gossips congregate, now listening unnoticed to the
chatter of the young girls over the doughty deeds
of Mabruk or of Ahmed. She hears everything.
She has learnt to understand the language of the
stars and the meaning of what the sand and the
wind say to each other. Of a happy temperament,
she is yet able to aid others through her own ex-
perience of sorrow ; and if there ever were such a
thing as a female sage, I should certainly say that
El-Haja deserved the title.
Very skilful is El-Haja in weaving the jevbis,
those stuffs with a purple ground which to us
Europeans seem too thin for carpets, too hard
for bed-covers, too thick for clothes, yet which
serve all these purposes in the Sahara, not to
speak of forming the partition in the tent and the
chief material of the palanquin.
El-Haja teaches novices the art of casting
the threads of the weft from one peg to another
and arranging these threads vertically in the
298 LIFE IN THE DA]VAR.
primitive looms, made of wood, string, and reeds.
She teaches them too how to dye wool, and how
to mix the different shades of colour ; but one
thing she jealously guards, and that is the secret
of the hieroglyphics ; those mysterious and cabalistic
designs, such as squares, zigzags and arabesques,
which represent sometimes an object, sometimes
an idea, and sometimes a phrase. Only to a few
initiated does El-Haja teach, and that grudgingly,
this ancient writino-, which she herself does not
fully understand, enshrouding as it does the thoughts
of races long since passed away.
The influence exercised by this old woman is
good. Many a bit of scandal is stopped when
she is by ; many a squabble is appeased by her
mere presence ; tor she is in harmony with the
soothinQf si:)irit of the hour, for the hour of verity
approaches now, the gilded hour of peace and
calm which precedes the evening. The men are
coming back to the tents which they left after the
prayer of the 'Asha. The austere horizon is bathed
for a time in a divine tenderness, and the dreary,
meagre, restricted nomad life, so wanting in comfort
and enjoyment, shares for a brief space the gentle
charm.
Chattering suddenly ceases ; the women who have
been busy over their household cares, silently
disperse and rest from their toil, to gaze, with
eyes half-closed and their little ones about them,
GREAT EVENTS IN THE DA WAR. 301
into the dim distance, in all the delight of idleness,
the negative joy of contemplation.
Soon the splendour of the golden glow begins to
fade, and the violet shadows of the tufts of drinn
grow longer and longer upon the sands. The
goats bleat and the camels draw near to the dawar.
The supreme moment has come of the death of the
Sun in full view of the spectators ; the old men
and many of the children prostrate themselves.
''La I ah it Allah Mohammed Rasul Allah / " *
It is the declaration of Mogreb or the faith.
The afternoon does not, however, always pass
over so entirely without events. Now and then,
very rarely of course, a caravan passes. Sometimes
the gum, or native militia, are called out by the
Bailek or Q-overnment official, and immediate obe-
dience to the first call is compulsory. Then ensue
great agitation, confusion and all the bustle of pre-
paration. The birth of a little camel, too, is almost
as important an event as the arrival of a baby
nomad, and causes a vast amount of acclamation
and of running to and fro. Or, again, a wandering
minstrel of the female sex arrives, who plays the
tambourine, and whose presence is the excuse
for dancing, full of passionate gesture. Nothing,
however, so completely upsets the repose of the
dawar as the death of one of its members. Of
course, I mean the upsetting of the usual ways of
* No God but God JMohammed the Messenger of God. — Tr.ans.
302 LIFE IN THE DAWAR.
the place, not of the effect on the hearts of the
bereaved.
From dawar to dawar the news spreads rapidly
and is eagerly commented on. Every one hastens
on foot or on camel to pay the last duties to the
deceased. The men come to carry the body, for
the Prophet has declared :
" Every step you take in carrying a dead body
will be worth to you the remission of ten sins, and
the substitution of ten good actions for each of
those ten sins."
The women come to mingle their grief with that
of those more immediately concerned and to en-
deavour to console them for their loss, but if they
happen to meet visitors not related to the deceased
at a little distance from the tents, the most animated
conversations take place. It is a grand occasion
for gossip and the news of the different tribes is
eagerly exchanged. The son of Musa-ben-Bashir,
of the Beni-Merziig tribe, is going to marry the
daughter of Abdallah-ben-Embarek, of the Sidi-
Atallah tribe. The wealthy Tahar-beni-Salem,
of the Aulad-Sidi-Ziaine, is going to repudiate
his third wife, Gr'gaya, but he is keeping two
and talks of marrying a fourth, which is likely to
lead to complications in the future and cause food
for gossip. It would be very dull in the desert
if the men did not sometimes indulge in poly-
gamy.
A WHITE DEATH. 305
Suddenly, however, the talkers arrive at the tent
where a so-called " white death " has struck down
its victim ; white death meaning a natural, whilst
" red death " means a violent end, as in war,
through assassination, or by accident. The women
all at once begin to weep, to cry aloud and to tear
the skin of their faces with their nails, as if the loss
in this family, of which they really know next to
nothing, had driven them to despair.
And truth to tell, the despair, though sudden,
is real. The nomad rarely sheds tears in the
ordinary course of his existence, and the nomad
women, except when they sob with anger or
jealousy, are equally chary of weeping. These
melancholy occasions act as a kind of safety valve
304 LIFE IN THE DA]]\-iR.
to the nervous nature of the nomad woman.
She simply revels in grief, gloats upon all the
sufferings of the past, and anticipates those she
fears for the future. On the other hand, the
women belonging to the afflicted family redouble
their expressions of grief on the arrival of each
new-comer, and a concert ensues which becomes
ever more and more impressive, like the raging of
the sea on the night of a storm.
" My father ! my father ! my father ! my father!''
they cry, the voices rising, ' swelling, vibrating,
till the noise becomes deafening ; now it dies
down, now it increases again, until it breaks into
one last effort, one long-sustained superhuman
scream of an agony vying with that of all other
suffering. Oh, the passionate tragedy of the funeral
lament ! How thoroughly in accord is it with the
nature of these people, who put forth all their
energies into every transport of woe, who are
moved from their ordinary calm so rarely, but
when they are moved feel so intensely.
"My father! My father! My father! My
father ! "
"Oh, my mother! Oh, my sister! Oh, my
husband ! "
Two cries in the two appeals always run into
one word, as it were, full of convulsive feeling,
penetrating through the bodily ear to the very
soul of the listener. Each mourner addresses his
A FUNERAL LAMENT. 305
various laments to his own dead, whetlier the
loss has been recent or was sustained long
ago. A gJmalla, or improvisatrice, adds to the
clamour by playing on her thebel or tambourine,
and chanting in her penetrating voice such a
refrain as the followins: :
" He was the pride of his tent.
He was the ornament of the dawar.
He was the bravest of the brave.
He was the honour of the womb that bore him.
He had the prudence of a jackal.
He had the strength of King Daoud (David)
And the patience of Job.
His hand gave alms secretly.
His tongue was gentle.
He taught his children to walk in the true path of Allah !
He was the pride of his tent.
He was the ornament of his dawar."
These stanzas are presently interrupted by a
fresh burst of grief. The women of the family
fling themselves upon the body of the dead, who
lies on the ground, wrapped in seven shrouds, if
he were rich enough to afford such luxury, and
covered over with a carpet. The women claw at
their own faces, and all the assistants begin to claw
at theirs. They rend their garments, and every
one else does the same, or at least pretends to
do so.
"My father! My father! My father! My
father! "
20
3o6 LIFE IN THE DA WAR.
The tears flow in torrents, the mourners are
almost choked with their sobs. Gradually, how-
ever, the shrillness of the laments of the younger
and less really sorrowful assistants decreases, but
the least thing starts them off again, and they
re-commence their monotonous chant, a more wildly
savage one, I do believe, than that of the
mourners of olden times ; a maddenino-, heart-
rending lament, which slowly invades the deep
silence of the Desert, and as slowly subsides.
The tears are, however, soon dried. Mourning
for those not members of the family scarcely lasts
twelve hours, and the day after the women set to
work again to spin wool, weave jerbis, and back-
bite Aisha, the wife of the Kebir. So wags the
world, even in the Sahara, indeed, above all in the
Sahara, where the fatalism of the people leads
them to look upon ruin and death without much
regret. And when the evening comes, whether
they have laughed or whether they have wept,
the kessra must be prepared again as it was in
the morning, if the men and the little ones are to
have any supper.
So they begin the whole ceremony over again,
and with it comes again the whole collection of
stories appropriate to the time, for the traditional
hour for story-telling has arrived. Before every
tent and around every fire of the dawar, the
mingled skein of romance is wound or unwound.
HAPPY DREAMS.
307
as the case may be, with all its subtle humour
and dream-like pathos. Happy, in spite of all their
miseries, are the people who know how to tell
tales ! Happy are the people who know plenty of
stories !
For in these stories their somewhat coarse love
affairs are touched with the clamour of romance,
although they neither know that this is the case
nor wish that it should be so. Their heavy slumbers
are lightened by facetious fancies, and they are
rocked in their dreams on the voluptuous wings
of thejinns or jinuneh and fairies they believe in.
Those who prefer visions of a more mystic
character seek them in their hopes of the celestial
gardens, the Paradise of Allah, whilst the very old
and pious find their happiness in dreaming of the
20*
3o8 LIFE IN THE DAWAR.
them, that is to say of perfection or the state of
ecstasy, the utter annihilation of self, in which the
soul, set free from the body, flies away from its
mortal coverino-.
o
Nearly all are sleeping now beneath the tent
and under the stars. The Angel-woman has long
since come to strew the blue sky with diamonds.
Only the guardians of the fire still watch, and some
few old men, repeating late the prayer of 'Asha :
" There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is
the Prophet of Allah.
" Allah is greater than all. Allah akbar ! "
Then follows the supplication from the Koran
(Surah cxiv.) for courage, for strength to endure
more bravely the terrors of the night now be-
ginning :
" In the name of Allah, the Pitiful and Merciful,
Behold, I seek a refuge near the Saviour of mankind.
King of men.
God of men.
Against the wickedness of the hidden one, who suggests
wicked thoughts.
Who whispers evil to the hearts of men.
Against genii and against men ! "
VIRTUES OF SAHARI.LV CAMELS. 309
CHAPTER XVI.
ABOUT THE CAMELS OF THE NOMAD ARAB
TRIBES.
Camels of the Sahara, who have nearly shaken
me to death upon your high and flabby humps,
on whose dry and tasteless flesh I have fed,
Camels of the Sahara, I am about to proclaim
your virtues !
I will dwell on your endurance, which is greater
than that of your brothers of the North, for if you
are uglier than they are, more ragged-looking,
more mangy, you are not a bit less robust. I will
laud your fleetness — your relative fleetness, I mean
— your proverbial and paradoxical sobriety. I will
praise the hair of your meagre mane, I will laud
the milk of your chaste spouses, I will dwell on
the elegance of your little tail and the breadth of
your softly-padded feet !
But after that, oh. Camels of the Sahara, you
must permit me to cavil at your execrable characters.
Will you allow me to enquire why your temper is
so very peevish, and why you growl in such a very
unpleasant manner ? Why do you begin to snort
3IO CAMELS OF THE NOMAD TRIBES.
directly your drivers begin to load you ? Why do
you growl when they remove your loads ? Why do
you carry on as if you were going to be killed
every time any one dares to approach you, or to
touch your primitive-looking harness with so much
as a single finger ?
Oh, Camels of the Sahara ! do not reply that
your other qualities are such that you can dispense
with amiability, nor that your miserable lot prevents
you from being gracious. Such a reply would be
ridiculous. All wretched churlish creatures have
made that plea ever since the world began. Allah
SULKIXESS OF CAMELS.
311
would favour you more, oh camels, if you did not
sniff in such a sulky way, and if your spirit were
not quite so rebellious ! For, really, you are the
only creatures in the Desert whose leanness is
unaesthetic, and you are, moreover, the only
ones who, after rebelling for a time, have not
resigned themselves to the inevitable in the very
slightest degree.
However, in spite of all these exceptions to your
virtues, I must admit your indispensability. But
for you, oh Camels of the Sahara, the admirable
country you perambulate would still be an un-
312 CAMELS OF THE NOMAD TRIBES.
known land. I hear you growl that that would have
been very little loss, very little loss indeed. Well,
of course you would have escaped having to carry
the weight of one female traveller and her luggage.
But that does not really make any difference to
you ! And I could not do less now than sing your
praises ; yes, to sing your praises in all sincerity.
I repeat, you are the only creatures without whom
it is impossible to live in the arid plains of sand,
for, without you, none could find their way in the
pathless wastes.
Yes ; I will praise you. You are to the poor
nomad, carriage, horse, and cow. You will hold
out without food for four days, and without drink
for eight. You growl no more when you are
hungry, you howl no more when you are thirsty,
and you make no objection to your brown fleece
being shorn when the women want to weave the
roofs of their homes.
Why, when I acknowledge all this, should I
quarrel with you again about a few other trifles ?
Because you are dirty, for instance, and do not
smell very nice ? There is not the slightest doubt
that you would prefer smelling nice if you could.
Is it fair to quote the occasions when you lose your
heads and become (dare I say it ?) mahbiili^'' bound ")
to use a classic expression ? When you give way
to this peculiar state of mind, you upset all your
comrades, and travellers and packages suddenly
THE STARTING OF THE CARAVAN. 313
find themselves kissing the grassless soil rather
too fervently.
No, no ; I will not dwell upon your faults. No
man is perfect, neither is any camel ! I prefer
to look upon you as the humble martyrs you
often are, victims of a horrible climate and the harsh
treatment of man. You always work till you drop,
and, perhaps, who can tell ? the sulky temper you
are charged with is a presentiment of the lonely
agony of your end, far away over there, when the
ungrateful sokhrars abandon you to your fate,
leaving you to die in solitude.
A great pity fills my soul when I think of you,
I esteem you, and in the end I quite love you !
This is why, oh camels of the Sahara, who have
fed me with your tasteless flesh, who have jolted
me about on your high and flabby humps, this
is why I mean to celebrate your virtues.
The caravan started at day-break with the loaded
camels. The men were up long before the first
rays of light appeared in the East, for loading
the animals is a long business, requiring the
greatest care, and when the loading was done the
prayer had to be said, and after that came the
caouah. Then at last, slowly, painfully, awkwardly,
oh, ye camels ! you got up from your knees, stretch-
ing out your ugly necks, and your inordinately long
legs. Bit by bit the caravan is in niotion.
Let us suppose it is a convoy of dates, going
314
CAMELS OF THE NOMAD TRIBES.
from the Wady M'zab to El-Golea. The men of
the dawar have left their tents in good spirits
under the guardianship of Allah, the All-powerful,
and the guidance of a few elders of the tribe ;
joyfully they came, driving you before them, oh
ye camels, on their way to take the tellis of dates
to some wealthy old Mozabite, and now they
joyfully start again, thinking of the profits of
the journey. Already in imagination they are
touching with their clumsy fingers the silk maliffa
and tinkling necklaces of some dancer whose
affections they covet, but who is the dread of
their wives, for it is for her sake that they depart
from the right way.
And the leader of the caravan, perched upon
one of your loads, swinging about on top
of the pack-saddle above the various sacks, is
THE LEADER OF THE CARAVAN. 315
calculating and dreaming. When he has paid the
tax he will hardly have enough over to buy a
certain mule he is ambitious of possessing. As
for indulging in any pleasure, alas ! he must avoid
all that now, no fassedett for him ! It is not
as he would poetically express it, that the snow
has fallen on the garden of his youth, he is not
yet old, and is, in fact, thinking of taking a
legitimate wife soon, she will be the eleventh, to
replace one he has just repudiated. But though
not old, he is middle-aged, and has reached the
period of life when the Mussulman becomes
virtuous for fear of losing the joys of Paradise.
But what struggles he will have against tempta-
tion ! How hard is the path of virtue, how
severe is Allah in the restrictions He puts on
the faithful who would walk in the right path.
You hear him sigh, oh ye camels, do ye not ?
You hear the brave chief of the caravan sigh ?
But he soon controls himself, he resigns himself
and repents having doubted the goodness of the
Most High. " Which of the blessings of God
have you denied ? " he murmurs. Then he
recites a whole Surah, and he regains his old zest
for life, which is so full of relish when it is free,
free in the great Sahara, as the wind from the
South and the wind from the North.
Forward then, oh camels ! Ouche ! Ouche !
Emchi !
3] 6 CAMELS OF THE NOMAD TRIBES.
Until the time of Moghrib or evening prayer, the
caravan pursues its wandering way from tuft to tuft
of grass, from grazing ground to grazing ground.
Now it advances in single file, looking like
a string of beads, now it widens out like the
advance guard of an army, pressing on in undula-
ting waves for its goal, like some tireless serpent,
camping at last, it would appear, just because
camp it must.
Then at dawn the next day it will start again
with its loaded camels.
You are the very pillars of commerce, oh ye
camels ! you are the swift carriers of important
missions, and you are not afraid of trotting (oh, what
a trot is yours!) for thirty miles without stopping.
But your role is most important, most touching,
most intimately connected with your master's life,
when the whole dawar is flitting from one place
to another, when even women and children are
seeking fresh pastures in a new district. Then
you become the bearers of the sacred treasures,
the lares and penates of the nomads, and you are
in very deed and truth part of the Saharian family.
Oh wandering race, who shall draw the veil from
all that those two words conceal of the inexplicable,
incomprehensible mystery in which your life is
shrouded '^ Long ago I sought the solution of the
enigma amongst the Ziganes of the Hungarian
plains, and now again I seek it here with no better
ARAB LOVE OF WANDERING. 317
success. It seems to me that wide stretches of
space entice the human race to travel. For all that,
there are people in many parts of the world
occupying apparently limitless plains, who do
not lead a wandering life. They are poor, yet they
abide where they are, they are short of food for their
children and their animals where they live, yet they
stop there. They would gain much by exchanging
at a distance the products of their own land, but
still they do not travel. Ingrain in them is their
love of the same soil, just as in the nomad tribe is
ingrain the necessity of constantly changing the
soil on which they live.
Ever new, yet ever the same, the problem
becomes ever more insoluble, why the Arab of the
Desert, who knows of cultivable countries on the
north of his own land, has never made any attempt
to establish himself there. Still more incomprehen-
sible does it seem that, although he has actually
often conquered portions of those fertile districts, he
has been content to pillage and deface them, never
making the slightest effort to preserve them. Incur-
able laziness is not really the reason for such strange
indifference, the Arab of the South is quite capable
of work, even of hard work. The truth is, that he
likes to wander, or rather that some unknown
force, stronger than himself, wills that he should
wander.
Even if I do not fully understand it, I too feel that
3i8 CAMELS OF THE NOMAD TRIBES.
grand beauty of the Desert which prevents those
who dwell in it from dreaming of any other beauty.
I too can realise that to wander from sand to sand,
and return to the old camping ground without ever
retracing one's steps, is to live, as it were, in that
beauty. Yes, I too feel it, though maybe I do not
understand it.
Camels of the Desert ! Gloomy Sphinx of the
waste ! I am quite unable to read the riddle you set
me to solve, yea, or any of your other enigmas !
So we will leave that question aside for a bit, and
go back to the good fellows who, thanks to you
camels, are about to move on, the nomads of our
dawar. And having seen them decamp, we shall
practically have seen, as it were at one stroke, the
breaking-up camp of all dawars, for the ways of the
nomads in the vast solitudes of the Desert are every-
where the same, and their customs do not vary in
the very least.
Do not suppose — observe I am now speaking,
not to the camels, but to my European brothers and
sisters — do not suppose that the nomad has no par-
ticular aim in view, when he starts on his travels.
Neither must you imagine that in making for his
goal, a hundred and fifty, two hundred, or even more
miles away, that he travels as we should, stopping
as little as possible by the way. Not a bit of it, he
will camp by the way, meaning to rest for a couple
of days, but very likely remaining for fifteen. The
A BUSY DAJVAR.
319
whole party halts beneath the walls of the towns of
M'zab valley, and then beneath those of the kusur
of the Wady M'zi. This is what wandering means,
as distinct from our own stupid way of travelling.
Let us look in at the departure of the little fraction
r .*t^- T
under the immediate control of the avaricious Kebir,
whose wrongs, and those of his much defamed wife
Aisha, we described above. The dawar, generally
so quiet, is now as busy and agitated as an ant-hill.
The termite colonies which explorers in equatorial
320 CAMELS OF THE NOMAD TRIBES.
districts come across, would certainly look very
much like a dawar about to decamp, when they
decide to leave their temporary ant-hill. " Ya
Moharnmed ! ya Bachir! Ya Buhausah ! Ruha
fezza ! " you hear on every side. And those who look
after the housekeeping, or rather tent keeping depart-
ment, are more busy than all the rest. " Bebbi Sidi !
my Lord ! my Master ! mind you don't forget any-
thing. I have lost this ! I have lost that ! Fasten
the bassur carefully, and this caotiah simply won't
boil ! Ya Kerah ! ya Mesauda ! ya Ghraira ! Ya
Mabruka ! Oh great Sidi Abd-el-Kader ! "
The tents are furled. You ought to see those
tents when the pegs have been taken out of the
ground and the canvases are swinging from the
central pole, as if suddenly seized with delirium, or
in the grasp of an earthquake. " Ya Fatmah ! Ya
Mabruka ! " The voices of the women who are
fussing about underneath the folds are smothered
and indistinct, and presently the huge fabric falls
down flop, just as a dead bird drops from the sky.
Then upon your backs — I am speaking to you
again now, oh ye camels of the Sahara ! — on your
backs, with their cushion-like humps, are piled up
innumerable nameless objects. Yes, objects, with-
out name, without colour, without form. And some-
times on the top of everything else are perched a
few venerable patriarchs, very, very old men, and
venerated ancestors. As for the young petted women,
THE BASSUR OR PALANQUIN. 321
they are huddled up with the children in the bassur,
the palanquin already described, made of branches
bent by the heat of a fire and covered over with
red, violet or pink vialiffas, the flaming sails of a
fantastic vessel, subject to the pitching and tossing
of the sea of the Desert.
For if you, oh, ye camels, are called the ships
of the Desert, it must have been with some
knowledge or prevision of the bassur, that bark
so completely open that its sole coverings are the
maliffas, that cabin so badly fastened to your saddle,
and so very insecure in itself. Sea-sickness is the
result of travelling in it to all but the thoroughly
seasoned. And I could wish my enemies — if I
have any, and I am sure I don't know if I have
— no worse torture than to have to travel some
fifty miles or more in this pre-historic equipage.
Oh, poor, unfortunate enemy ! Pity him, oh, ye
camels of the Sahara !
Arab women, however, are proud to submit to
this martyrdom, for, through long custom, to ride
in the bassur is equivalent to a proclamation of
youth and beauty. To suffer and be considered
beautiful, and to have one's vanity tickled — what
is more natural, and what more delightful ? The
old women, who with their attractions lose the
privilege of riding in the bassur, trot behind
with the men of the family. They would not
consider it the thing to get into the palanquin,
21
32 2 CAMELS OF THE NOMAD TRIBES.
even if they were overwhelmed with fatigue. " By
Allah, oh my son, do you take me for a bride-
elect ? "
Yes ; the old women trot along in the hot sand.
And the whole dawar is on the march, the camels
with the baggage, the camels with the bassurs
— one to each tent at least — the women and the
donkeys, the little boys leading the goats, and
the men of different ages, all press on in the
best of spirits, looking forward to fresh pastures
in a new district. Surely you share their hopes,
oh ye camels ! bearers of the sacred treasures, the
la7^es and penates of the nomads, and, so sharing
them, you are in very deed part of the Saharian
family !
The sight of you recalls many an impression,
arouses many a memory, and evokes many a
dream.
The melancholy chant of your drivers in the
pure clear air thrills the ear like a caress. And
when it is accompanied by the faint rhythm of
the shrill-toned flutes, the Desert itself seems to
break into song.
Yes, oh ye camels ! ye recall many an impression,
many a memory, many a dream.
The women get used to your very painful
motions, and they actually manage, incredible as it
may seem, huddled up as they are in the bassur,
to orind the flour for the evening: kessra, holdino-
PATHETIC MEMORIES.
323
the mill between their knees. And the charming
voice of the mill serves as bass to the chant of
the sokhrars, the sounds, petty and fugitive though
they intrinsically are, widening, deepening, broaden-
ing into solemnity in the boundless wastes of the
ever-changing horizon.
Thus, oh ye callers-up of impressions, of
memories, and of dreams, do ye add to the
happiness of those about you '
The women live once more through the happy
journeys of their childhood. They recall the pride
and emotion with which they went — in the nuptial
bassur — from the tent of their father to that of
their husband. Oh, that wonderful day ! The
smoke of the powder fired off in their honour
took the form of broken grey clouds. The land-
21*
324 CAMELS OF THE NOMAD TRIBES.
scape traversed was just like this, or just like that,
as the case may be. They saw that very same
undulating dune of sand, that very rock glowing
like fire in the intense heat of the sun. Then,
when the night fell, the silvery wady scintillated
beneath the moon rays in its setting of boundless
sands.
Yea, oh ye camels ! ye will ever be callers-up
of impressions, of memories, and of dreams ! This
is why, oh camels of the Sahara, who have fed
me with your tasteless flesh, who have shaken me
up on your lofty and flabby humps, I choose to
sing your praises.
GOLDEN DA YS OF ARAB LIFE. 325
CHAPTER XVII.
ON THE IDEAS OF THE SAHARIAN WOMEN.
I CANNOT help asking myself whether I have
succeeded in making my readers fully understand
the various characteristics which go to make up
the woman, the eternal woman, of the Sahara —
the ideas, the tastes of these creatures of instinct,
the opinions of these ignorant minds, the super-
stitions of these childish souls, so agitated by the
thoughts of the beyond.
The Prophet, when he denied all culture to a
Mohammedan woman, made her an inferior creature
who knows herself to be inferior. And it is only
the wives of Cai'ds, Aghas, and Sherifs, with, it
must be acknowledged, a few courtesans, who
retain any traditions of the olden times, or of
the ways of their great-great-grandmothers, who
lived before the time of Mohammed, in the golden
days of Arab life, when women too were intel-
lectual.
Even then the Arabs were poor, but how
beautiful was the dawn of the spirit, when lyric
326 IDEAS OF SAHARIAN WOMEN.
poetry was born, when songs of love were sung
among the sands of the desert of Nefood, near
the sources of the Hedjaz in Arabia, in Mesopo-
tamia and in Egypt, whither migrated their
fathers' fathers in the good old days. Then the
seven golden poems, selected as the most beautiful,
were left exposed to the admiration of crowds within
the walls of the Sacred Kaabah, said to have been
built originally by Adam, and rebuilt by Abraham,
now preserved at Mecca, where it is protected, by
the devotion of the Faithful, with a huge cloth pall.*
Then the women, who were treated with, chivalrous
courtesy, sometimes distinguished themselves as
authors. Trials of skill in verse-making were held
before them, and thev it was who bestowed the
prizes on the victors.
But Mohammed came, succeeded in his religious
ambition, and all was changed.
He drove out from the Kaabah the 360 gods
who had been gathered together there by the
piety of different families, and replaced them by
the one true God, Allah. From a theological jDoint
of view, there is no doubt that this meant real pro-
gress, but, poetically considered, it was a disaster.
I mean that it destroyed that latent poetry which
every one of the old deities brought in his or
her train, whether that deity were the Jehovah of
the Hebrews, Mithra, who glowed with all the
* The veil or Holy Carpet renewed every year. — TRANS.
OLD GODS DRIVEN OUT.
327
glorious light of the sun, the mysterious Isis or
her husband Osiris, the powerful protector of the
dead, the goddess Myliltta, the cruel but voluptuous
Venus of Asia, or the gods of Tyre and Carthage,
Baal-Haman, Beldir, Bakax, or Ifru, the Pan of
the West, not to speak of all those who were
adored under the form of stones or fruits. All
alike drifted to the Kaabah, where even the creed
of the Brahmins was represented, and the name
of Jesus Himself was not unknown.
All were driven out now, and with them went
a certain indefinable something — a spiritual ex-
altation — an unconscious sense of glory in the
individual soul, for which the fierce triumphs of
the conquerors of later centuries did not by any
means make up.
328 IDEAS OF SAHARIAN WOMEN.
Under the heavy mantle of Islam perished also
the liberty and intelligence of woman. Mohammed
is supposed to have ameliorated her lot, but this
is a profound error. What has he decreed about
her } What did the angel Gabriel dictate to him
about her ?
1. He confirmed the rule of succession already
in force.
2. He declared that a woman has no soul, or,
at least, that her soul is not the same as the soul
of man. A correct theory perhaps, and since then
it has become truer than ever, only it does not
do to publish every truth abroad.
3. That the number of legitimate wives should
never exceed four, with as many slaves over and
above as the master cares to take.
4. That fathers should no longer have the right
to bury living daughters on the day of their
birth.
I am pretty sure, and I have good grounds for
my conviction, that these premature inhumations
were really very rare. And as for the rule about
the number of wives, that was made for the sake
of the moral and physical well-being of the stronger,
rather than of the weaker sex. For the dis-
advantage of living with three or with five legiti-
mate rivals, if disadvantage it be, is, I should say,
fairly equal. I do not see quite clearly what
innovations in favour of women were introduced by
DECLINE OF POLYGAMY. 329
Mohammed, though his legislation against her inte-
rests is apparent enough. He wrapped her up in
veils, secluded her, and forbid her, as it will be re-
membered, to practise any religious customs ; in a
word, he separated her from man in intellect as
he had already done in soul. He stifled her as
he stifled the voice of the poets and of those who
composed love romances. " They are senseless
fools, inspired by the Devil," says the Koran, " they
say what they do not do."
A fine speech from the merchant who won the
heart of the portly Khadija, by knowing how to
repeat : " two and two make four."
Just now I alluded to polygamy. The reasons
for the decline, I might almost say the suppression,
of the custom are many, but difficult to define,
and to enter into them would be beyond the scope
of this work, for to do so would be to study men,
not their female companions. One question however
I feel I have a right to ask, and that is :
What does the woman of the Sahara think of
the present state of things .-*
She thinks according to the way the wind blows ;
much that is good and much that is evil, or, rather,
she gives vent to her fleeting fancies in optimistic
or pessimistic feelings as the case may be, yielding
herself up entirely to those feelings with a kind of
resigned frenzy, a fierce but fleeting passion, which
is the very essence of her originality.
330 IDEAS OF SAHARIAN WOMEN.
Jealous as her pride and her sensuality make her,
the Saharian woman does not feel perfect security
in the monogamy which is now the general rule.
Hence she is always on the qtd-vive, always anxious
about the future, and apparently eager to keep in
the straight path. Hence the way she gloats
over being the only wife, a fact which panders
to her vanity, and is the chief glory of her daily
life.
It is not only the rival wives who have the privilege
of exciting jealousy, it is felt as much for the
fassedett in whose society husbands forget their
duties and lose their mxoney. Abomination of
desolation ! May Allah confound their audacity !
Very bitter are the tongues of the virtuous
wives on this subject, when they get together in
private, that is to say, when friends of the same
age are alone, for if a mother or respectable
elderly relation approaches the group of talkers, a
sudden silence will ensue. If the newcomer should
be an old grandmother, not a word is said on
the scandalous subject under discussion, it would
never do for the ears of the venerable saint to be
shocked by it, " may the Prophet bless those ears
and the twelve friends of the Prophet and the
Angels Azrael and Gabriel. Amen ! "
But the concert begins again, as soon as the
old grandmother has turned her back.
" May she be accursed, daughter of a dog ! "
THE LADIES OF THE DESERT
ZZ^
says one. " May her tomb be desecrated the very
day of her burial ! May the Lord make her hke
unto the handle of a door, which ever remains
on the outside."
The wives of the chief men in the Sahara,
however, the ladies of the Desert, refrain from
indulging in such very strong language as this, it
would not be considered o-ood form to do so ;
although, as a matter of fact, they really suffer
more from polygamy and from the rival attrac-
tions of fassedett than do their more lowly sisters
amongst the common people. Their somewhat
more advanced civilization only makes happiness
rarer for them. They have no individual life of
their own, such as is enjoyed by the lower classes ;
332 IDEAS OF SAHARIAN WOMEN.
they feel all the disadvantages of existence in the
Desert, without enjoying the compensating
advantages. No gossipping with their neighbours,
no social gatherings for them, no mutual work.
Idleness is their portion, only very rarely relieved
by what is called a dhiffa or hospitable meal given
by the husband, for which the wife superintends
the necessary preparations from a distance ; but
as it is men, not women, who do all the work, wait
on the guests, and look after the roasting of the meat
in the open air, the poor sequestrated women have
not even the melancholy consolation of listening to
the chatter of the servant girls.
The number of ladies in the Sahara is, of course,
very limited, but of those few, some are very
intelligent, though they can scarcely be called
well educated. They rarely have a chance,
however, of turning their abilities to account,
unless they happen to be left widows, with a son
under age, who is the heir of his father's title.
Their dreary, monotonous days are passed in the
big tents of their husbands, decorated with carpets,
and lined with stuffs of as many colours as those
in a stained glass window. They are stupefied by
perfumes, and gradually sink into a state of chronic
ennui. Indeed the passion which rouses them now
and then, is more like that of some haughty Oriental
Sultana than of the free and easy lovers, the foolish
virgins, foolish wives and foolish repudiated women.
THE TRUE SONG OF LOVE. 333
whose hearts flutter and palpitate in the great
Sahara.
Yes, love, sensual love, brief but passionate, the
love of which poets sing, the love on which the
Arab story-tellers dwell in the " Thousand and One
Nights," sets at nought les convenances with many
a Saharian woman, who is neither strictly virtuous
nor really depraved, but something between the two ;
who is not exactly held in honour, but at the same
time is not looked down upon. There are such
women in every kasr and in every tribe, to whom,
as in Arabia at the time of Solomon, the song of
the Shulamite is the true song of love.
" I sought him, whom my soul loveth, I sought
him, but I found him not.
" I will rise now, and go about the city, in the
streets, and in the broad ways, I will seek him whom
my soul loveth, I sought him, and I found him
not.
" The watchmen* that go about the city found me,
to whom I said : ' Saw ye him, whom my soul
loveth ^ '
" It was but a little, that I passed from them, but I
found him whom my soul loveth ; I would not let him
go until I had brought him into my mother's
house, and into the chamber of her that conceived
me.
« The night watchman is still employed, both in the kasr and
the dawar.
334 IDEAS OF THE SAHARIAN WOMEN.
I have often been asked what influence French
ideas have had upon the women of the Sahara,
since the occupation, and I reply, so far absolutely
none. As for new ideas, all I have discovered have
been ideas about the French or about French
inventions which do not affect the minds of those
who conceive them in the very smallest degree.
The horror of photography from which I myself
have suffered so much, for I have had to resort to
all manner of extraordinary ruses to obtain my
ends, is the result of one of these ideas, not to
speak of the fact that the Saharians think it a
positive sin to represent the human figure, for has
not Mohammed forbidden it ? To them the camera
is a personal enemy. The sokhrars of the caravans
from the North have described it so well, that every
strange object is taken for it. Women attribute to
it the evil eye, and they believe that if their portraits
are seen, they will themselves be carried off by
force to be shut up in the harems of Paris !
The Sahara women have other convictions on the
subject of the French, which have nothing to do
with the photography they consider so terrible. For
instance, they are quite sure that the Rumis of
Algeria, El Aghuat and Tuggurt — officers, officials,
merchants, and all — have been transported so far
from their own land as a punishment for great
crimes. In their eyes they are all guilty, all under
legal condemnation, all convicts, in fact.
PREJUDICES AGAINST FRENCH WOMEN. 335
Another general and deeply-rooted belief is that
the French Government can make gold at will.
Make no mistake ; that government actually pro-
duces that gold, makes it out of nothing by some
magic recipe. Then it (the government) distributes
it amongst its employes lavishly, without counting it.
These employes do not even have the trouble of
asking for it. They receive millions, the amount
only limited by the difficulties of transport.
The women of the kusur, such as the nomad
Larbaa, who come most directly under French
influence, have evolved an idea, and that of course a
deplorable one, about French women. According
to them, a French woman is absolutely depraved
in morals, perfectly shameless, absurdly emancipated,
but only too strong physically, for she does not
pull out her grey hairs ! This is why, according
to Arab matrons, so many Rumi marriages are
barren. Fatmah, Zorah, Kerah and El Haja will
all assure you that the culpable negligence of the
infidels about pulling out their grey hairs, makes it
quite impossible for them to have children. The
women of more distant tribes have not acquired all
this information. Their ignorance of the people who
have conquered their country is supreme. I remem-
ber once, when I went unannounced into a house
near Wargla, that the mistress received me with
screams and every sign of the greatest terror. Sur-
prised at such excitement in a country I had found
336 IDEAS OF THE SAHARIAN WOMEN.
friendly, I tried to calm her. " Don't come near me,
don't come near me," she cried. "Oh Rdjil, oh
Devil ! " She took me for a man, in spite of my
thoroughly feminine costume. When her tremors
were soothed, and her alarmed modesty had re-
covered from the terrible shock it had received, she
confessed to me that she had believed there were
no women in the country of the Rumis, in fact,
that the female sex only exists in the races of the
Sahara ! All the time she was talking she was
looking at me out of the corner of her eye in a
furtive way, much as we should look at some un-
known animal, which may, perhaps, for all we know,
be ferocious.
Without holding any special creed, or believing in
any religion properly so called, the women of the
Sahara are much influenced by religious ideas, the
result probably of contact with the fanaticism of the
men. And when old and young, without the know-
ledge of their husbands or their sons, go to take an
offering to the pile of stones, marking the last resting
place of some holy marabout, when they sacrifice a
cock to propitiate some unknown divinity, or when
they hang upon the bushes near their homes pieces
torn from their garments, they are subject to fear,
to an awful dread of a terrible destiny, a sentiment
really quite opposed to that of the Maktub, or the
Inevitable.
For all that, however, the two ideas jostle each
LEGIONS OF INVISIBLE BEINGS.
337
Other, I do not know how, in their brains, so that
their characters are a mixture of almost careless
gaiety, feverish pride, and melancholy indifference,
combined sometimes with a highly strung nervous-
Prt-KCu
^^^^^B .' '-ioktt^^'^^H
ness, resulting now and then in hysteria, more rarely
in madness.
All nature seems to them to be instinct with life ;
full of legions of invisible beings, marvellous crea-
tures, such as jinns or jinuneh, ogres, vampires,
demons, and even angels, whose aid, when given to
mortals, is not without its perils. And then there
is the awful ghoul, Tesawira, the soul of one
22
338 IDEAS OF SAHARIAN WOMEN.
who has been assassinated, who tries to drag the
livinP; into his tomb.
The jinn, however, is the being who is most
active, and is most frequently invoked. Like the
gobHn of the hearth amongst the Highlanders of
Scotland, he is sometimes friendly, but more often
mischievous. He is the familiar genius who breaks
crockery, tangles wool, and revenges neglect by
breaking a leg or otherwise upsetting the plans of
those who have despised him. Nearly all the
customs of the Sahara, which seem queer to us,
are practised to please, or to avoid displeasing some
jinn.
A large volume, perhaps many volumes, might be
written on the superstitious legends and beliefs in
the supernatural of the Sahara women. Add to
these their faith in diviners, omens, amulets, charms,
love philtres made from the brains of hyenas, cooling
philtres, such as those distilled from a certain
grass, which cool bih-fih (instanter) the ardour of
the most impassioned lover.
On the subject of that most precious element,
water and its uses, many are the ideas of the
Saharian woman. I have already referred to some
of them, and the religious importance of ablutions
and purification amongst the Arabs is well known.
Durinsf the time of mourninp-, no matter how
long it lasts, none of the women of the Sahara
wash themselves, they must not even roll the kous-
SUPERSTITIOUS REMEDIES FOR IILNESS. 339
koLis, or mould the clay for making pottery, lest
they should soil their fingers with the damp sub-
stance. For the rest, women never waste water ;
from long custom they have learnt to do without it
when they are obliged, and they are often deprived
of it for a long time. I should rather like to ask,
whether those who are so ready to criticise them,
would keep as clean as they do under similar cir-
cumstances ^
The people of the Orient (and here we are dealing
with the emigrant Orient, so to speak) do not
understand the necessity of making frequent toilettes.
A fine head of hair is meant to be admired, not
to be constantly combed. " Do you suppose that
the angels Harut and Marut, who were so hand-
some, but now, alas, are damned, re-curled their
locks perpetually ?
'' Instead of attending to such frivolities, ask
pardon of the Lord, for He loves to pardon."
There are also superstitions connected with
domestic remedies for illness. Sufferings are
welcomed as salutary for the soul. When a man
or a woman has been ill more than three days,
his or her sins are forgiven. Allah said to the
Angel on the left hand : " Leave off writing down
his or her misdeeds," and He said to the Angel
on the right hand: "Write down his or her good
actions, and make them better than they are."
Linumerable, too, are the traditions of the Sahara,
340 IDEAS OF THE SAHARIAN WOMEN.
some pleasing, some melancholy, all more or less
mysterious. These traditions are repeated, believed
in, acted upon. The secret Night when the earth
opens is invoked, and legends are told of the
roses, the falling stars, the butterflies, and the
lotus flowers, which herald the approach to Paradise.
To every animal is given a voice, to every bird
a special plaint. Some of these fancies inspire
those who indulge in them with real terror, and
timid souls tremble when they hear the screech owl
demanding blood, or the brown owl whispering
fears to the heart of a mother. Poor brown owl.
One day, long ago, her son, whose name was
Jacob, went on a long journey, and never came
back. The brown owl still calls him, still awaits
his return.
" Rebia ja au la Yakub !
The spring returns, but not Jacob ! Jacob !
The summer returns, but not Jacob ! Jacob !
Jacob ! Jacob ! "
The cry of the brown owl is seldom heard ; its
grief is too excessive for much speech. Great
sorrow is generally silent. But in spite of herself,
her lament is heard on stormy nights, for then
she is thinking of the dangers her Jacob must be
incurring. '• Jacob ! Jacob ! " she cries again and
again.
In a word, the ways of the women of the Sahara
DANCING OF SAHARIAN WOMEN. 341
are full of contradictions ; contradictions of feelings
of sentiment, but everything is more or less childish
with them, even their dancing, of which they are
insatiably fond. I have already spoken of the
dancing of the women of Wargla, but the love
of this amusement is general in the Sahara, and
women dance before each other in a manner not a
bit more modest than that of the fassedett, though
it is decidedly less graceful. Between their cups
of tea they give themselves up to posing in all
manner of attitudes, twisting their bodies about
in a manner often anything but pleasing, holding
themselves rigid, whilst the spectators stare at
them, and assuming indifferent, passionate, polite,
or disdainful expressions, according to the mood
of their audience. They seem to like to practise
what will please the opposite sex when no repre-
sentatives of that sex are present. Although they
are not aware of it themselves, there is, in fact,
something voluptuous about them, an unconscious
struggling after an erotic ideal in their dancing,
the ornaments they wear, and the perfumes they
use.
To please ! To please ! That is their one desire,
and they have so very few opportunities of pleasing
the opposite sex. For all that, in this country
where those who wish to be attractive have not
yet hit upon the idea of low-necked bodices, they
accumulate fine clothes, piling them up one on top
342 IDEAS OF THE SAHARIAN WOMEN.
of the others, with a view to the delectation of
husbands and lovers. Brocaded silks, spangled
tulle, tissues of gold and silver, some real, some
imitation, falling in straight folds, gleaming dis-
guises, mysterious covering, suggesting the hidden
charms. And all this glittering metallic lustre,
this raiment of gold, is the very condensation
of the dreams of many races, the synthesis of all
the confused mirages emanating from the sultry
sands of the Desert. No idea has yet been con-
ceived of any other luxury than that of sensuous
form. Genii, angels, phantoms — whether infernal
or divine — have no other ; Paradise itself promises
nothing more as a reward to the faithful.
Sacred draperies, these, such as were worn by
matrons in the movable and venerated tents of
IMMUTABLE FORMS. 343
the patriarchal family in times long gone by.
Unchanging forms, immutable lines, still every-
where in use except where tradition has been
modified by the bad taste of the North. Immu-
table! How full of meaning is that word! For
how many, many centuries have women aroused
the love of men by the attractions of the same
ornaments ? Woman, eternally young, one genera-
tion rapidly succeeding another, blossom of the
perfect flower that is to be, is ever there, even
as one wave replaces another in the ocean, and
the colour, the light, and the shade, appeal with
the same force to the eyes of the men of to-day,
as they did to those of past ages, and will appeal
to others yet unborn !
THE END.
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DT Pommerol, Jetm
337 Among the women of the
P773 Sahara
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